


Maggot and Madman

by giantflyingskelesnurtle



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Civil Rights Movement, Discrimination, Faries, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Magic, fairylock, fantasylock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 16:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 71,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1785001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giantflyingskelesnurtle/pseuds/giantflyingskelesnurtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He looked over to the living room. Sherlock’s eyes were opened, and he was staring at John.</p>
<p>John looked down at himself, trying to see if he had toothpaste all down his front or something, but upon finding nothing looked back up again. There was something in Sherlock’s face that he didn’t like. He felt a slight draft blow through the air, tingling the back of his neck and his wings – oh.</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Coat

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this weird idea for some time and thought I'd give it a go. Hope you all enjoy it!

CHAPTER ONE: THE COAT

“Two twenty-one Baker Street.” The voice is gruff and seeps through an accent thick as the peanut butter at the bottom of the jar, the kind of accent that turns every “th” sound into an “f” and denies the existence of the letter “h” with almost religious devotion. John’s eyes flick up to the little screen – a number is already sitting there. _Oh, bugger_ , he thinks. It takes him a moment – a little time to recollect the past ten minutes spent sitting in the small vehicle, watching the little people outside make their way by foot down the gum-splattered streets or into tube stations, and he wondered, _What the fuck is it all for?_ Now he just thinks, _Why?_ but it’s over and done, and the cabbie’s getting impatient, so his hand makes its way down to his wallet like a man out to war, and he waves a far too sizeable wad of bills a sad farewell.

He doesn’t exit immediately; he looks out the window for a second, and there he is. This Sherlock Holmes person, the madman, this psychopath who knew everything about him just by looking. This man who’s going to be a part of his life now, John supposes, who’s standing in front of what could be his new home. _This is why_ , John realizes. _I’m not just moving, or maybe moving, I’m starting my life over and goddamnit, I drove up in a fucking cab_.

The cabbie clears his throat and John realizes that he’s been sitting there for far too long, awkwardly long. “Sorry,” he mumbles, reaching to open the door and remembering something very important.

He starts to reach into his pocket and can feel the cabbie bristling. “Sorry, just a mo, please,” he says, and slips a couple of color-changing contacts into his eyes. _You’re kidding yourself,_ he thinks. _He knows so much about you already and you’ll be living under the same roof and you still think you can hide this from him?_

“Shut up,” he mutters, and opens the door, and steps outside.

•••

He’s trying so hard not to stare. “That’s a skull,” he says.

“Friend of mine,” Holmes tosses out nonchalantly, adding, “Why’d I say ‘friend’…”

“What do you think then, Doctor Watson?” asks the motherly landlady who’s been standing politely in the corner with the air of John’s own mum when he used to have his mates over for slumberparties. “There’s another bedroom upstairs, if you’ll be needing two bedrooms.”

John looks up, startled. _Wait, hold on, what?_ “Of course we’ll be needing two…”

“Oh, don’t worry, there’s all sorts ‘round here. Ms. Turner next door’s got _married ones_.” Before John can say another word in protest, she begins to step towards him, arms outstretched. “Here, dearie, let me take your coat for you.”

_“No._ ” The sound erupts from his lips before he can hold it back. Ms. Hudson raises an eyebrow; Sherlock’s head swivels towards him at the sound of his outburst. Inwardly, John’s smacking himself. He clears his throat, unsure of what to do next, trying to shut out an age-old terror that threatens to consume him on the spot.

“I’m fine,” he mutters, with a tight smile. “It’s fine.”

The landlady peers at him, scrutinizing him for a moment, and finally fans out her face into a kind smile. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone to get settled in.”

As soon as she leaves, John lets out a long breath, and looks around himself, at the flat. It _is_ nice. Not the kind of place he’d imagined himself living in – at least not for a while. Not that he was complaining, of course. _But be realistic_ , he tells himself. _Can I really live here, with this person?_

Holmes’ (or, rather, Sherlock’s, he supposes) sharp baritone voice slices through the air and through his thoughts; “I don’t mind, you know.”

A pregnant moment passes; John turns and tilts his head to the side in subtle confusion. “Sorry, what?”

“I don’t mind,” Sherlock repeats. He looks up from his computer, which somehow found its way into his lap during the past minute or so. John can’t read his expression. “It’s fine. It’s all fine.”

“Sorry, what’s fine?”

“You know what I’m talking about.” He looks back down, leaving John standing and glancing around the room in bewilderment.

“No, actually, I’ve no idea.”

“You read the news, don’t you?” He doesn’t look up.

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you’ve no doubt kept tabs on all the stories that have been popping up throughout the last few years.”

Still, John could only stare. “ _What_ are you talking about?”

“Sightings, Doctor Watson. Sightings. Confessions, even. Rumors.” Now he looks up – and yes, there is something in his eyes. “People say they’ve been seeing things.”

“What–”

“Suzana Turner, murdered by her drug dealer, eighth of January last year,” he says quickly, still without any emotion. “I was able to help out a bit.”

“You–”

“I’m a detective of sorts, yes. The murder was completely transparent. But there was something interesting… about her body.”

In the smallest of ways, John freezes. It is utterly insane, and it is impossible, but there it is. Sherlock can’t possibly be talking about anything else, can he? Still, he can’t possibly know. Knowing about his sister and his service is one thing, and it’s an amazing, impossible thing, but knowing _this_ is completely different.

Because John has been hiding this from everyone in the world for twenty-eight years and he’ll be damned if someone sees through him in just one day.

“What,” he begins, “the _hell_ are you talking about.”

Sherlock sighs. “Please stop pretending to be stupider than you are, Dr. Watson, most people start to short circuit when they descend below their normal level.”

“Look. Mr. Holmes.”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” the man corrects. He sighs again. “We’re going to be living together, John. I suggest you give up any hopes of hiding them from me. More importantly, judging by the small beads of perspiration collecting on your brow just now, you’d _really_ like to take off your coat.”

John cannot do anything but stare. _Shit._ How can he possibly know? _Shit shit shit._

“You’re suspicious about me because I’m not taking off my coat?” he asks, remaining as calm as he can.

“Yes. Well, that and the fact that you’re wearing contacts even though you don’t need glasses.”

He shakes his head. “How the hell did you–”

“Never mind.” He looks back down at his computer. “I’d like to make it very clear that I am not prejudiced. You’re aware, of course, of the groups that are already organizing against your people; I see no reason for such hatred. What are you afraid of, Dr. Watson? Are you afraid I’ll turn you in to some sort of authority, even though there is none that I know of? Are you afraid that I will see you as some sort of deformed monster, just like the your _classmates_ in _primary school?_ ”

The silence that hangs in the air is as heavy as lead as John stares and his blood begins to simmer, and then boil. _This is insane,_ he thinks to himself. _How can he possibly know all of this? This is insane and impossible and I will not take this bollocks for one more second._

“You’re right,” he says, after the pause draws itself out.

Sherlock looks up. “Right about what?”

“It _is_ warm in here,” John says, his rage and indignation coolly channeled out into one laser of a sentence. To Sherlock’s evident surprise, he all but rips off his coat, and the jacket underneath, and takes a breath and throws the coats on a chair and stares Sherlock down.

And this is it. He tries his hardest not to hide and/or smirk at the look on Sherlock’s face; his mask of apathy remains, but the astonishment in his eyes is obvious and blatant. John smiles, to his own surprise, at the almost boyish awe overcoming this infuriating man’s face – he can’t help but forgive him the smallest bit for his lack of tact.

After a moment, Sherlock senses himself staring, and discreetly turns his eyes away, attempting to make it seem as if he doesn’t care at all, as if it’s no big deal, which it is, of course. He clears his throat. “Er. Yes.” He can’t seem to think of anything else to say.

“Yeah, I know,” says John, not moving. “Pretty terrifying.”

“No,” Sherlock says, before he can seem to stop himself. He looks back up, awkwardly, for a moment. “I… what I mean is. They’re. Er, well. Sort of. Beautiful, actually.”

John’s breath catches in his throat. His heart’s pounding begins to slow as he stands in a stupor. He remembers; those kids back in school, who he thought were his friends, and all the things they’d said, and all the scars they’d left – and now here is this man, this _madman_ , who sits and calls them beautiful.

“Thanks,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Sherlock stares again, and John sees him, and he looks away. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” John can feel himself beginning to relax. “It’s… not everyday that you see a bloke with these big things sticking out of him like some oversized bug. I understand.”

Sherlock says nothing, but reverts his focus back to his computer in silence. John continues to stand, until he walks into the other room and begins to survey the kitchen, only half paying attention, because his brain will not shut up.

_I’m John Hamish Watson. I’m half fucking fairy and I can bloody fly because of it and I think, I just think, that I might have found someone who doesn’t care._


	2. Contacts

 

 _Saving someone’s life,_ John thinks, _certainly seems to have a strange emotional aftershock._

He looks down at his hand, and back up at the mirror. Back down again, and he frowns. He’s done this every morning, every day of his adult life and even some of his younger years; it’s become so much of a habit that he really had to think this morning to stop himself. His hand was already halfway to his face when the thought occurred to him – and it was strange, and uncomfortable, and now he’s really in a fix.

His first thought was back to last week. He didn’t really even think before he’d drawn the gun and fired and hit – of course – which was what was really bothering him now. John’s killed people before – not many, of course, he was just a doctor after all – but he’s used a gun in his lifetime to put out someone’s life like a light switch, although maybe a bit more messy, and it’s never been like this.

Because there hadn’t even been a question in his mind before he pulled the trigger through that window, through that dark and into the light and into Jefferson Hope’s aorta. All he had seen was Sherlock in danger, and that was enough. _Bang_.

 _But that’s not really all_ , he reminds himself, lowering his hand and the contacts case with it. _He knew, but he kept it a secret. He trusts me. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man to trust people, but it’s only been a week and he already trusts me._

_Do I… do I trust him?_

Before the thought is finished, he realizes that he’s put the contacts back in the case and put the case back on the shelf. He finds himself looking back up, at his reflection before him, startled for a moment to see his eyes their natural color. The change is subtle, but so drastic that he almost doesn’t recognize himself.

With a satisfied nod, he turns and heads out of the bathroom in his pyjamas and bathrobe. He decides he’s going to make some bangers and hash for breakfast, and try to force some of it down Sherlock’s esophagus.

_I guess the answer is yes._

•••

Sherlock trudges into the kitchen, drawn as if by an invisible string tied round his waist, and half-stumbles on one of the piles of case files and unorganized bits of science equipment he’s got lying around. The smell of frying sausages, an aroma that would be tantalizing to any other human being, stagnates in the air around his nose. Instead, it’s the sight of John that perks his head up.

Over the past week – _has it really only been a week?_ – mornings have settled into a threadbare routine. Sherlock wakes up – or doesn’t wake up, depending on whether or not he actually slept at all – at some ungodly hour, either far too early or far too late, and John is at the ready whenever he happens to stumble into the kitchen with some breakfast going. It confused him at first, but he could tell by John’s demeanor and the looks he was getting that he must have picked up on the dire state of Sherlock’s eating habits. He was a doctor after all, Sherlock concluded – it wouldn’t do to have his flatmate starve to death. Still, Sherlock didn’t see why John wouldn’t just let him do what he pleased and decide for himself when he was going to eat (if at all.) It was irritating to the utmost.

But something’s different this morning – Sherlock can tell by the way John’s holding himself, and from some other, less noticeable details. Robe meticulously tied; concerned about image, even though Sherlock’s the only other person in the flat. Wings held perpendicular to the ground; Sherlock was beginning to note a sort of pattern in John’s body language where his wings were concerned. When he was in a neutral state, they would be inclined downward at a gentle forty-degree angle to the ground. When he was happy, more of a carefree and relaxed state of mind, his wings were higher up, reaching a one-hundred-twenty degree angle. When he was exited, they would raise up even higher, almost stretching. Lastly, when he was nervous or exceedingly self-conscious – more specifically, when he was trying to calm himself – his wings would point directly downward, sometimes almost entirely folding into his back, depending on the severity of his state.

_Extremely uncomfortable. Very conscious of my presence in the room, guarded stance suggesting nervousness and fear, possibly regret. Conclusion: he’s hiding something from me._

Sherlock pauses for a moment, and watches silently. The sight of John cooking breakfast in their shared kitchen with the full intent of forcing some of it down Sherlock’s throat – _two plates set out, extra sausages used, no clean Tupperware for storage of extra food, second chair cleared off, far too much pepper used for his tastes but precisely suitable to mine_ – pulls at something in his brain. He can’t remember the last time someone tried to mother him like this. It’s halfway between utterly irritating and… possibly touching, if he were capable of finding things touching. Annoyed, he shoves the thought away and steps forward. _I suppose I might like just one sausage._

“You slept in,” John remarks, without turning around.

“Mm.”

“Sleep well at all?”

“Dreadfully, not that it’s at all important,” Sherlock responds bluntly. “I will never understand the human obsession with sleep. I find it neither necessary nor enjoyable.”

“Yet you yourself told me that you tend to do a lot of it when you’re not on a case,” John continues. _Purposefully avoiding turning around_ , Sherlock observes.

“And you managed to remember me mentioning that over a week ago,” he responds, walking over quietly and coming to stand just beside his flatmate. “Are you sure you aren’t in need of something more important to occupy your brain space?”

“If we’re going to be living together, I do think it’s important,” John says, turning to reach for something and jerking back with surprise when he find himself face to face with a tall, dark haired figure.

Sherlock jerks back in surprise as well.

For a moment, they both stare at each other, one in shock and one in apprehension, and nothing is said. The moment grows and grows, until Sherlock finally opens his mouth and breaks the silence.

“I understand why you find it necessary to wear those contacts on a daily basis,” he remarks, his voice cautious but steady; “but I must admit, I much prefer this… natural color.”

“Wh- really?” John didn’t seem to be expecting that. “That’s… Okay, then.”

He doesn’t show it, but Sherlock’s pieced enough together about him to know that at least some part of him is pleased. “I hope you don’t feel the need to wear those around the flat anymore,” he says, walking away to go shuffle through some papers Lestrade dropped off the other day. “I find the very idea that you think it’s important to hide yourself from me ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous, it’s practical,” John says, remembering the sausages and tending to them.

“Not at all. I already know about your… species, and have already made it clear that I do not care.” Sherlock continues to leaf through the papers even though he’s not paying attention. “In any case, it’s not a secret anymore. Why should you attempt to hide your biological differences?” 

John doesn’t turn around, but pauses. “Most people don’t have this reaction.”

“Mm, and what reaction do most people have?”

“Er… something along the lines of, ‘Holy mother of god, his eyes are bloody purple. Get away, you freak, don’t touch me.’”

Sherlock wonders if John can feel him tensing from across the room – most likely, not. “The color of one’s irises is hardly reason at all for hysteria. It’s a wonder people get by in this world at all without panicking at every change in the weather.”

“I’m assuming that by ‘people,’ what you mean is, ‘everyone except me,’” John remarks with a smirk that carries across the room in his tone.

 _And you_ , Sherlock adds in his head, immediately shocked that the thought crossed his mind. He shoves into the darkest recesses of his mind palace, keeping it in case it’s important but reluctant to actually delete it. _What do I mean by that?_

In the next moment, the burner is turned off and the sausages are placed on two plates, and Sherlock makes his way over to the table. He might as well have a bite, he decides. And those sausages do look tasty.

John eats across from him, reading the paper. Sherlock can still see his eyes – completely normal except for the irises, a beautiful, deep violet – and his wings behind him, sixty degrees to the ground. _Yes, how_ do _they all get by_ , his head repeats as he chews. _Everyone except you and me?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! I'm just here to inform you all that, since I've already finished writing this fic, I'll be updating it regularly - hopefully every other day! Okay, that's all. You can go back to reading now.


	3. Mornings

He can tell by the sound of the footsteps that it’s Mycroft, and his next thought is: _does he know?_ His mind does a quick spin through every bit of information his brother could have taken in as the steps make their way up the stairs. _He’s only seen John once before, but that was enough for me to figure it out. Also, possibility of some sort of record from the military, which he’s no doubt scoured by now. Yes, he certainly knows._

And for some reason – he realizes this as he plucks random strings on his violin, irritating the hell out of John, even though he says nothing about it – this really gets to Sherlock. Really, _really_ gets to him. This is John’s secret, and no one should know it without John’s permission.

With a nasty sort of jolt, Sherlock realizes that _he_ never received John’s permission to know this in the first place. He found out the same way that Mycroft invariably did – by observing, and deducing. _So why am I different?_ he wonders bitterly, and a bit confused. _Or am I not different at all?_

He remembers a morning two weeks ago, and relives the whole thing by the time Mycroft opens the door with one hand, umbrella in the other, and smiles the smile that launched so many flying fists in younger years – all of which were Sherlock’s.

•••

John woke up quietly, because it was Saturday, relaxed a little, and jolted because it had just occurred to him that he killed a man last night.

He couldn’t remember where he’d put the gun after they returned from supper, and after trying desperately (and groggily) to think of it for a while, he gave up. It would show up eventually – and even though this wasn’t a particularly comforting thought, it would have to do for the time being.

He vaguely wondered what time it was, but didn’t look over at the clock because he didn’t really want to know. What he wanted to do was have some leftovers from the Chinese place, not have coffee, not fully wake up, and not think. Since it was Saturday, he decided to do just that.

After lying in bed for a few minutes more, he stood, slowly, so as not to get those spots all over his eyes and a pounding in his brain, and he made his way to the bathroom across the hall. He brushed his teeth. By habit, because he always did it directly after teeth-brushing, he plopped a couple of contacts into his eyes. He yawned, because it was Saturday morning and he’d just killed a man and he was tired. He walked to the kitchen.

Sherlock was in the living room, on the couch, lying down with his eyes closed. Waking up just a bit by then, John glanced over his vampire-pale arms to check for nicotine patches – negative. _Alright, then_ , he thought, and set about choosing which leftovers from the fridge to microwave.

He knew from the past few days that Sherlock probably wasn’t going to answer any question he posed whilst he was in one of his brain-floods (John had thought the term up this morning whilst lying in bed, half asleep) but the last thing John wanted at the moment was to be alone with his own thoughts. “You’ve been up all night looking into ‘Moriarty,’ haven’t you?” he remarked. He picked out some chicken and noodle thing in a Styrofoam box.

Sherlock said nothing.

“Any luck?” John prompted.

After a long pause, Sherlock sucked in a quick breath and answered. “It’s a common name, John. Or at least, semi-common. A last name is hardly enough to go on in a world full of people.”

“I thought you could tell a person’s life story from their shoelaces, or something,” John responded, not without a bit of smugness.

“You can leave observable traces on shoelaces, John. You can’t leave anything on a name.” He was silent for such a long while that John resigned himself that he wasn’t going to have a conversation after all, but the silence snapped when Sherlock’s voice asked, “Are you alright?”

John looked over, taken aback. “Um… I’m fine, I suppose. Why do you ask?”

“Because you killed a man and then went out for Chinese.”

Both of them paused for the longest time, John’s brain going every direction at once and finally ending in a malfunction, and in the silence of the cars moving by outside and the heater on, he doubled over with laughter.

He laughed and kept on laughing, until his sides ached and his eyes were watering, and after a while he noticed that Sherlock had joined in, too, and both of them laughed together until the microwave timer beeped, and even then they kept on laughing until it hurt John so much that he could no longer stand.

“Oh god…” he giggled, wiping an almost-tear from his eye. “Oh _god_ … no, we can’t laugh, this really isn’t funny.”

“It is, a bit, actually,” Sherlock responded from the other room.

“Yeah… I suppose it is.” John started laughing again. “I killed a serial murderer after chasing you through the streets of London by using the GPS on a murdered woman’s mobile, and then I stuffed myself with chicken satay and egg rolls. It’s… oh my god, it’s _hilarious_.”

He looked over to the living room. Sherlock’s eyes were opened, and he was staring at John.

John looked down at himself, trying to see if he had toothpaste all down his front or something, but upon finding nothing looked back up again. There was something in Sherlock’s face that he didn’t like. He felt a slight draft blow through the air, tingling the back of his neck and his wings – oh _._

He thought back frantically to where he’d last seen his nightgown – it was still packed in the suitcases he’d brought over from his flat last night, after supper. His wings were dangling about in the morning air, completely exposed, catching every dollop of Satdurday morning sunlight and throwing it back into the air by way of shimmery, glossy rainbows. Almost four feet long, every inch of them in plain view of anyone who happened to be looking. Sherlock, as it happened, was looking.

Both of them were silent for a moment that seemed to stretch far too long to be a moment anymore. Sherlock did not open his mouth, but looked as if he was very carefully trying to choose the right words.

“As I told you the other day,” he said slowly, “I’m completely fine with it.”

John nodded slightly, although he wasn’t sure he believed it.

“Okay,” he said. He waited for Sherlock to go on.

Sherlock said nothing, but returned to his thinking pose.

John waited a moment, and then another moment, without moving, and another moment in the same manner. He shifted uncomfortably – Sherlock didn’t seem to notice.

“Er…” he began, unsure of how to continue. “Is… that all?”

Sherlock sighed. “I’m sorry, was my response unsatisfactory?”

“Well… not particularly, I suppose…”

“Then I don’t see a problem.” Sherlock looked over at him sharply, without getting up or moving hands from their prayer-like position. “I’m not going to pretend that they’re not there, that I’m somehow above being fascinated, and then steal glances at you when you think I’m not looking. I acknowledge the fact that you have wings and that you aren’t human. However, I don’t find it particularly important or relevant. I couldn’t care less about what species you are; as long as your intelligence is of an acceptable level and your demeanor is tolerable, I trust we’ll manage just fine as flatmates.”

John was frozen in place with astonishment. No one had ever talked about his… _differences_ like this, as if they were just that – differences – and not an entire description of his being. Sherlock had just acknowledged his fairy-ness, but just as a part of his identity, and a small part at that, like his dirty blond hair or Caucasian skin… no one had ever done that before. To everyone else who’d ever known, his wings had consumed the rest of him, giving him a label, making him “fascinating,” making him not even a person, but a thing… and now, he felt a rush of something – bubbly, good, sweet – and stood a bit taller, feeling that on that Saturday morning, after killing and Chinese and nightmares and laughter, he had become a person.

“Don’t use the blue bowls, I might have put some asbestos in one of them,” Sherlock warned from across the room.

John jolted, ran across the kitchen to the microwave, popped the door open and looked inside. The bowl in which his now-lukewarm noodles sat was ceramic blue.

He sighed, and dumped it into the trash.

•••

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, drawn out with that painful smile.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock says curtly.

“You’ve certainly made this place cozy,” his brother remarks.

Sherlock says nothing. Icy silence is always his game plan when he doesn’t feel like a clipping burn.

Mycroft opens his mouth, most likely with the intention of telling Sherlock exactly why he is here (most likely some dull case that Sherlock will invariably refuse to take up) but the words are choked off before they can leave his thinly smiling mouth, when John walks into the room.

John’s holding a cup of tea, and is fully dressed – he likes to be dressed, even around the house, as Sherlock has noticed for no apparent reason – and his contacts are out. Sherlock is quick to notice, not without the slightest bit of alarm, that his wings are also exposed.

“Sherlock, have you seen–” he begins, but stops short at the sight of Mycroft.

A painful silence follows. Sherlock notes, with some amusement, that his brother seems to be at a loss for words.

John shuffles awkwardly. “Hello,” he says, attempting at a pleasant greeting and falling flat.

Mycroft says nothing. He is very conspicuously staring at John – and Sherlock bristles.

The silence becomes more painfully awkward by the second.

“Well…” Mycroft says finally, attempting another one of his snide smiles, “this is certainly a surprise.”

John’s eyes flit around him awkwardly, pursing his lips in that way he does.

“I’m shocked,” Sherlock says, not without a hint of smugness. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now.”

Mycroft opens his mouth, shuts it again, and starts over. “You can hardly berate me for not deducing Doctor Watson’s… state.”

“You still haven’t figured it out, have you?” Sherlock grins discreetly.

“I’m… right here, you know,” John says from the other side of the room.

Mycroft stares him down through the corner of his eye and can’t manage to say anything else.

“Alright, I’m done with this,” John sighs. “I’m a fairy. Is there anything else you need to know or can we be done here?”

The brother pauses for a moment, smiles in his fakest way, and says, “No, that information is perfectly adequate, thank you.” He turns to Sherlock, and removes something from his briefcase. “Now, I came by to–”

“I’ve already got a case,” Sherlock interrupts flatly. “Do your own dirty work for once, Mycroft.”

Mycroft sighs and plops the folder down on the coffee table. “Take a look anyway. I expect to hear back from you by the end of today.”

“Enjoy your lunch,” Sherlock tells him with his own scathing smile.

Thankfully, his brother departs, with a withering glance. As soon as he closes the door, John walks forward and takes a seat opposite Sherlock, in his usual chair.

Both of them look at each other for a moment, and simultaneously burst out laughing.

“Oh my god, that was horrible,” John manages through the peals of laughter.

“It was,” Sherlock agrees. He keeps on laughing.

“Some history I’ve got with your brother now,” John giggles. “First he kidnaps me; second, he meets me at a crime scene right after I’ve shot someone; and now this. You know, I really thought he’d know about me by now.”

“As did I.”

“The look on his face, though… my god. I think maybe he did figure it out, but just didn’t believe it, because I suppose it does seem sort of impossible? It’s sort of like deducing everything about a person and all the signs point to them actually being a unicorn in disguise… I suppose at that point you just throw your hands up and go, sod it, there must be some sort of mistake.”

“Most likely. He’s had all the same opportunities to observe you as I have.”

“I don’t like the way you’re saying ‘observe me’ …makes me feel like next, _I’ll_ be the one lying on the floor with you rattling off about how I was murdered.”

“Hardly. I’d have to let someone murder you first.”

John looks over at him sideways, confused at first but the beginnings of a crooked smile beginning to warm up his face. Sherlock tries not to smile as well, but it slips from his lips and infects the skin on his cheeks, and it’s not something that happens to his face all that often.

_Not sentiment_ , he assures himself. _But… something else._

The only conclusion he can come to, and it’s not really all that conclusive, is that he simply cannot recall the last time he made anyone smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case any of you were curious, I was inspired by user BrightandSparkly to dip my fingers in the wonderful world of free online photoshop websites and created this little fairy!John portrait. Hope you all like it!
> 
> http://therosielord.tumblr.com/post/89020378549/fairyjohn-taking-selfies-on-his-laptop-because


	4. The Other Coat

“Can you fly?”

John looks up, startled for only a second, until he recollects himself with a resigned sigh. It’s been almost a month-ish since the “Study in Pink,” as John calls it, and also a month-ish since he stopped calling Sherlock “The Madman.” He stopped right after the case was over, actually. The name no longer seems appropriate.

 _Because he’s not mad at all,_ John realized a few days earlier, in a quiet sort of mini-revelation. _I don’t know what he is. But he’s not mad._

_I suppose he’s his own branch of neuroscience. Let’s not get too deep into it._

The question came solidly from across the room, where Sherlock was perched on his chair in his “posh thinking pose,” as John likes to call it – legs crossed, and fingertips splayed and together, just under his chin. He looks over now, and sees Sherlock staring very intently at him, waiting for an answer.

John opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He’s been waiting for this question to pop up – it hasn’t been posed until now, which is a surprise – and even though he’s had plenty of time to think about it, he realizes that he’s not ready yet to give the full answer.

So he just says, “No,” and goes back to cleaning the table.

 _That’s the end of that,_ he thinks hopefully, but immediately comes the baritone response – “Why not?”

“I don’t want to get into it. Because I just can’t, alright?”

Sherlock doesn’t seem happy with the answer, but doesn’t say anything else. The question is not brought up again. John wishes desperately that it could stay that way, but he knows he’s going to have to give an answer someday, and he does not look forward to it. Until then, it feels rewarding to have at least one part of his life remain a mystery.

•••

It’s a double-homicide, and Sherlock should be a lot more excited than he is right now. John’s becoming far too aware of Sherlock’s behavioral patterns to let this go as a well-maybe-it’s-just-a-bad-day sort of thing. Something is definitely up.

“Right, then,” he says warily, trying not to let his tone show that he’s got his eye on his flatmate. “Did you leave that… thing sitting in your bedroom? The last time you did, remember, it stunk up your room for weeks. I am _not_ having you sleep on the sofa again. That was a nightmare.”

“I’ll clean it up later,” says Sherlock flatly, his mind otherwise preoccupied.

“No, you won’t,” says John.

“Mm-hm.” Sherlock wanders off down the hallway, and John stands in the living room, sighing.

After half a minute and a text from Lestrade, Sherlock makes his way back from wherever it is that he was. He’s got a grocery bag clutched in his hand, which John eyes suspiciously. He puts the bag down in order to don his coat and scarf as John waits by the door. After a moment or two of watching without realizing it, John turns away and begins to put on his own coat.

However, it’s not half a second before he feels two frail but surprisingly strong hands grip the back of the jacket and begin to yank it off him.

“Hey!” He can feel Sherlock towering over him, which isn’t really helping the situation at all. “What… Sherlock, stop–”

“You are absolutely not wearing this old thing out,” Sherlock calmly remarks. “It’s ragged and far too light. The weather is supposed to be below freezing today. I can’t have you getting ill while we’re on a case.”

“Sherlock.” John struggles to keep the coat on him, but eventually relents. The man slips the thin fabric off of him and tosses it into the corner. “Sherlock. What is this about? Really?”

“Are you accusing me of having some sinister motive, John? I am wounded by your accusation. Has it occurred to you that perhaps I care for your well-being?”

“No, actually,” John says flatly, although yes, that had occurred to him. He spins around to face his flatmate, and as he does so his exposed wings whip around and whack into Sherlock’s wiry frame. Immediately he pulls them closer to him, trying to make them smaller, invisible, to make them disappear altogether – that age old terror again, refusing to leave him.

He collects himself and looks Sherlock square in the face. “Well, I don’t have another jacket,” he says coolly. “I’ll be needing that one back.”

“Won’t be necessary.” Without another word, Sherlock hands him the grocery bag.

John takes it, reaches inside, and pulls out something black and made of rough fabric. With a sideways what-are-you-up-to look at the taller man, he holds the thing up and finds himself staring at a black coat.

“What…” he begins, but can’t finish, because he realizes in an instant that this isn’t just a coat, this is a _nice_ coat. A cotton Haversack with a corduroy collar and leather shoulder guards; it probably cost a fortune. He slowly realizes that not only is this one of the nicest coats he’s ever held (beside’s Sherlock’s posh Belstaff number) it is exactly the sort of coat he’d pick out for himself if he had any real money, and it looks as if it would fit him perfectly.

He stops staring for a moment, and looks over at Sherlock, who is looking just a bit too smug – but smiling. Something in John relaxes, as it always does when he sees Sherlock smile, which is something he has never attempted to explain. Despite himself, he smiles just a bit too, but more in confusion than happiness, and asks, “Alright, Sherlock, what is this all about?”

“Present,” Sherlock answers immediately. “For you. From me. I got you a present. Problem?”

“Er, yeah, a bit.” John eyes the coat suspiciously, and begins digging his hands through the fabric, searching for… he wasn’t exactly sure exactly. A hidden bomb, a dagger in the pocket, anything. “Not sure what it is, though. Get back to you in a mo.”

“I didn’t booby trap it, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Sherlock is watching him, perhaps eagerly, perhaps anxiously. “I was tired of seeing you shivering in that awful nylon rag. It didn’t make you much more useful, going blue when I needed your help on a case.”

John gives him a withering glance, and continues searching through the pockets. He’s about to give up when he feels something wrong.

“Hold on.”

He turns around the coat to reveal two long, vertical slits in the back.

His heart plummets into his stomach and everything becomes painfully clear and unclear all at once. “Sherlock…” He can’t manage anything more than that. Without another word, he shoves the coat back and walks away, arching his back so that he can pull his wings in better, flatten them alongside him, anything to make them disappear.

“John, wait–” Sherlock calls after him, but John spins around and cuts him off.

“I trusted you, okay?” he snaps, with a rage and pain he didn’t know he had lying in him all this time. “I don’t… I thought, I really thought, that you were my friend, my god, after everything I’ve done for you. I guess I was just thick, wasn’t I?”

“John–”

“No, you listen. You listen because I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say, I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” John’s leg spasms – he clenches his hand into a fist. “You… god, Sherlock. You were the first person in the world who didn’t want to turn me into a freak show. Now you give me this, so you can walk me around like your own little fairy pet? So you could fucking show me off? God, I… Look, I’m sorry you went to all this trouble. I’m… I don’t know. I just thought you were different.”

As he turns again to walk to who knows where, anywhere as long as it’s not right here, he feels that bony hand on his arm. He tries to jerk away, even though he doesn’t want to. The hand holds firm.

“John…” That low voice comes slithering through the air, so gentle, soft in a way that he’s never heard it before. John closes his eyes – he’s come to love that voice, even though he shouldn’t. Especially not now.

“Let go of me,” he says, not as sharp as he’s trying to be.

“Please. John, I… I didn’t mean…” Sherlock struggles for words, something John’s never seen him do before. “I don’t think you’re a ‘freak show,’ as you put it. I don’t want to show you off. Please believe me, that was very far from my intent.”

John jerks his arm away, and Sherlock lets go, and John says nothing.

“It isn’t right,” Sherlock says. He looks at his flatmate and in his eyes is the slightest hint at a vulnerability that John’s never known was there. “You are the most incredible person I have ever met and you shouldn’t have to hide any part of you. People shouldn’t be afraid of you and you shouldn’t be afraid of people knowing who or what you are. None of this is right.”

They stare at each other, the silence hanging in the air between them growing heavier by the second. John opens his mouth, closes it, tries again, and succeeds.

“Sherlock…” he begins, looking away for a second and swallowing back something in his throat. “I didn’t know… I’m sorry.”

Sherlock nods and says nothing.

John looks up at him, and gestures to the coat in Sherlock’s hand. “It’s a… lovely present, I suppose, then,” he says. “What I mean is… it’s a nice coat. You must have gone to a lot of trouble.”

“It wasn’t all that much, really.”

“But I can’t wear it.” He sees the disappointment in Sherlock’s face, and adds after a moment, “Not now, at least.”

Sherlock pauses for a moment, but nods.

“I’m… sorry I misinterpreted it. I didn’t really think… well, actually, I did think that. I was upset that you would… Sherlock.” He looks at the ground because he can’t look at him just now, not yet. “No one’s ever lasted this long with me. I’ve tried to have flatmates before, or, I dunno, friends, but no one’s ever known for this long that I’m a freak and still stayed with me. I was afraid you’d. You know.” He looks at him now, without moving his head. “Run away, just like everyone else.”

“Don’t call yourself that,” Sherlock snaps with surprising force. “A _freak_. You’re anything but that. And don’t be stupid – why would I leave you, John?”

John looks up, startled at the innocence of that question. Sherlock looks at him with a patronizing why-would-you-even-say-something-so-idiotic expression, one John’s very used to seeing by now, but in this context it takes on a completely different meaning. The fact that Sherlock can ask that question and really mean it is almost too much to bear.

It’s time to tell him the truth, he decides.

“Sit down, will you?” he asks, quietly.

“John, Lestrade–” Sherlock begins, but John gives him a Look, and he reluctantly takes his place in his usual chair.

John sits down opposite him, and takes a deep breath. “You asked me a while ago,” he begins, “if I can fly.”

Sherlock says nothing.

“I lied, sort of,” he continues. “I _can_ fly.”

“I know,” says Sherlock, receiving another Look for his comment.

John takes a very long pause.

“Sherlock…” he goes on, his voice breathy and almost a whisper, “I haven’t flown in three years.”

Sherlock nods. “That would be, since you were discharged.”

“Since I was shot, actually.”

“Close enough.”

“Will you please stop being so… so _Sherlocky_ for just one moment and listen?”

Sherlock says nothing.

John looks at him. “I don’t intend to ever fly again.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “John…?”

“I can’t. I just can’t.” He closes his eyes and tries to block out the memories that are flooding back, just like his nightmares, more brutal now that he’s awake. “I almost died when I was shot. I was about five minutes from death but I pulled through. I really thought I was going to die.” He squeezes his eyes harder. He’s not going to cry – not even close – but the light in the room is suddenly painfully bright. “I wasn’t just shot in regular combat. I was shot by one of our own soldiers. A British soldier, Sherlock. I knew him. I was shot because… he shot me because of what I am. He was ordered to by one of the generals. They thought I was dangerous. They wanted to kill me – like I was vermin. A pest. Or some wild animal. The entire troop wanted me dead.”

Sherlock is completely silent, but John can see something building up behind his eyes. Is it… anger?

“It was right after I saved all of their lives,” he goes on, having fought back whatever was rising in his throat and now talking calmly. “I stopped a bloody _missile_ in bloody _midair._ I literally chased a heat-seeking missile several thousand feet above the ground and drove it into a mountain. It was the most dangerous, fucked-up thing I have ever done and I’m pretty sure I did it on pure adrenaline. And so the troop takes advantage of the whole mess and the confusion to try to murder me.”

Sherlock looks away – John suspects it’s because he doesn’t want him to see whatever’s on his face.

“I used to think,” John goes on, “that maybe I wasn’t so different. And if I _was_ different, that’s okay. There are other people in the world like me. I could be part of human society and still be a fairy at the same time. I used to think that people would come to their senses after a while and see that I’m just like them. But I’m not.” He sighs. “Getting shot was a wake-up call. It was hitting rock bottom. I’ve always been afraid of people knowing what I am, and now I know why. It’s because no matter how much I act like a human on the outside, I can never be a fairy on the inside, because people will see through me and they’ll hate me and want me dead. It’s a nice thought, Sherlock, that I could go out in public like… _this._ ” He gestures to himself – all of himself. “But I can’t. I can’t fly again, ever, because the only way to have people treat you like a human is to _become_ human, and that’s just the way it is and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

In the following silence, John’s phone chirps. He picks it up; it’s a text from Lestrade. _You two coming?_

He texts back, _In a few minutes._

When he looks up, Sherlock’s standing by the door. He’s holding John’s new coat in one hand and his gloves in the other. He offers the coat to John. “Please.”

John sighs, and shakes his head. “I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready.”

Sherlock doesn’t move. “Promise me,” he says, his voice not betraying anything. “Promise me that someday you’ll wear it.”

John doesn’t like making promises. Especially not promises he doesn’t know he’ll be able to keep.

However, the one thing he’s come to understand over the past couple of months is that Sherlock seems to be the exception to everything.

John promises.


	5. It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting. Turns out, I can't update as regularly as I wanted to - but don't worry, there should be a new chapter up at LEAST once a week. Ta!

He can’t really remember the last time he felt this uncomfortable. The tension in the room is choking him – infecting his system with every breath he sucks in and turning to cotton in his trachea. Sherlock’s still running about the flat, deducing every single speck of dust he can lay his ravenous eyes on, but he’s lost a little bit of his enthusiasm for it in the past half a minute. Lestrade’s standing in the corner talking to some police officers that John doesn’t recognize. Donovan’s still nowhere to be seen.

John had asked Lestrade about her a few minutes ago, where she might have gone off to – he’d had no idea. Inwardly, John is immeasurably grateful; after what has just happened, he thinks he might vomit if he saw her again anytime soon.

He feels painfully aware of the throbbing beneath his jumper.

Sighing, he rolls his shoulders back and shifts on the dusty, well-stained couch. Woven into every second that he spends in public is a dull undercurrent of the throbbing ache that comes with practically pinioning his wings against him with fabric. The pain in itself isn’t really so bad – what he hates is the constant reminder of what he is, the soreness that ensures that he will never forget that he can never be human. If it weren’t for that ache, he tells himself, he might just be able to slip into a sort of trance as he goes about his daily activities, never wondering what that strange feeling on his back was, never questioning his humanity, his _personhood_ , and never, _never_ thinking of what it would be like to fly.

Never feeling like your best friend was possibly the only person in the room who wouldn’t immediately start to dissect you if they knew what you were.

He sighs, a long, deep, satisfactory sigh, and rubs his fingers against his temple. _You are such an idiot._

He’s got a lot of thinking to do, he decides. Might as well; there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on right now. Lestrade’s still giving him wary glances every once in a while. John begins to panic, only slightly, but relaxes when he takes into account everything that just happened, and decides that Lestrade can’t possibly know. The man must have a lot on his mind – it was probably nothing to worry about.

For just a split second, John wishes more than anything else that he was wearing the coat Sherlock had presented him with a few hours ago.

He immediately pushes the thought away, labeling it “impossible” and trying his best to forget about it. The notion creeps back, though. Somehow, sitting in this murder-tainted flat with the smell of death and premature mourning stagnating in the air, the idea of being surrounded by fabric that consists of nothing but Sherlock’s compassion for him seems like the most appealing idea in the world.

Opening his eyes with a snap, he clears his brain of any more thoughts about Haversack coats and any compassion John’s hopeful brain had imagined that cold, calculating Sherlock might possess. _That was a silly idea_ , he thinks to himself. The man was a self-proclaimed sociopath, for god’s sake… although John was not only spotting holes in that theory, but gaping voids.

Skipping forwards a bit in his brain, he thinks back to not fifteen minutes ago. Did he miss something crucial, something that everyone had seemed to grasp but him? He runs the scene over and over again in his head, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach and the spots that threaten to cross over his eyes like the kind of shooting star you can’t wish on.

Yes. He does indeed have a lot to think about.

•••

It had started off as a perfectly average case: ridiculous circumstances, and completely impossible to explain. It was a double homicide, Lestrade explained when they first arrived – two women inside a locked bedroom, one of two in the flat they shared. There was absolutely no sign on either of the bodies of something that could have caused their deaths – an autopsy showed that neither had been poisoned, and were both in good health. Naturally, Sherlock was beside himself with boyish glee.

He set to work immediately, listing off this and that about the woman. “This one, Esme Hamilton, was a nanny, ran a part-time daycare in this flat,” he began. “The other, Linda Mason… accountant, but always wanted to be a novelist. She wrote children’s books in her spare time. They both live here together. Both of them were single – Hamilton recently broke up with her girlfriend of one year. Mason had one… no, two children, from a past marriage, but she’s not with him anymore… he’s dead, but she’s not a widow. He died after she left him. The children live here but are currently in Wales on vacation with Mason’s brother.”

John nodded, but said nothing. He was used to this sort of thing by now.

Sherlock knelt to inspect the bodies more closely. “There’s no sign of a struggle, or any type of physical trauma. John…?”

At the sound of his name, John stepped over to the dead body and inspected it – he felt around it, around the head and scalp, smelled the mouth. “I can’t see any signs of a struggle, either,” he said after a moment. “No bruises or anything. It’s like… she just… _died_.”

Before he placed the woman’s head back down (even now, he never felt comfortable staring a dead person in the eyes) he noticed something. Something small, and most likely incredibly unimportant, something about her eyes, which he had opened with his index finger whilst inspecting the body.

She was wearing contacts.

 _You are utterly ridiculous_ , he told himself. Still, the back of his neck began to tingle. _Loads of people wear contacts. The chances are miniscule. You’re too hopeful._

John gingerly placed his fingers on the small transparent disc, holding his breath as he cautiously plucked it out of Esme Hamilton’s eyes.

He let his breath out slowly.

“Sherlock,” he said, quietly. He said it again, louder this time. “Sherlock!”

“John, can you come here, please?” Sherlock responded.

John sighed. “Sherlock… no, you really need to come over here first.”

“John. You… you really need to see this.”

John perked his head up, and stood. Sherlock was kneeled over Linda Mason’s body on the other side of the room. As he walked over, Sherlock turned his head to the detective inspector.

“Lestrade, I’ll need you to leave for a moment,” he said sharply.

Lestrade was taken aback. “I’m not going to bloody _leave for a moment_. This is _my_ crime scene, I’m breaking all the rules just letting you in here _supervised_.”

Sherlock seemed ready to argue, but decided against it. John crouched down next to him and looked to wear Sherlock was staring.

“I don’t see…” John began, but trailed off.

Linda Mason’s shirt was a little askew in the back – she was on her side. The fabric was stretched out a little strangely, awkwardly, as if there was something stiff underneath that was pushing it out. John’s eyes traveled down the folds of fabric until… until…

“Holy…” he breathed.

Sticking out of the bottom of her shirt was the tiniest flash of transparent something, a sort of glossy rainbow skin that John knew like the back of his hand. He gently pushed the fabric of the shirt up a bit, and then a bit more, until he was staring at the all-too-familiar rounded tips of a pair of wings.

“What are you looking at over here?” Lestrade walked over, his arms crossed, peering, and before John could push the fabric back down again, Lestrade had already seen it.

He stopped short, paused, leaned down, and pulled the shirt up as far as it could go, exposing the woman’s back and her bra strap, and almost all of her wings.

“What the hell…” he muttered. Sherlock and John exchanged a look – should they explain? They would probably have to.

“What _is_ this?” Lestrade asked again. He reached out a hand to push the shirt farther up, until they could all see the bases of her wings; the areas where the insect melded into the human flesh, as John used to think of it. Lestrade’s mouth dropped a little in shock, just the slightest bit, and John felt overexposed. His skin was crawling and his wings were feeling far too big and far too _there_ , as if _he_ were the one on the floor being examined and prodded at. As discreetly as he could, he reached a hand behind himself to check that they weren’t sticking out of his sweater – no. He looked at the back of Linda Mason’s head, and shivered a little – was she a true fairy, the more magic kind, like him, or a half fairy, like his sister? Was she able to fly? The irony hit him hard enough that he giggled a bit, in a solemn way; this was the first time he’d ever seen another fairy in person, one that wasn’t related to him, one outside of his extended family, and she was sprawled on her side with three strange men kneeling over her, deciding how she died.

Suddenly, he remembered something. “Sherlock…” he said, quietly, but not whispering. “The other one, too. Esme Hamilton.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Purple eyes.”

Without warning, Sherlock bolted across the room to inspect the other body. Within a matter of seconds, he announced, “She’s got wings, too.”

Lestrade seemed to come out of his stupor. “Wait, stop, _what_ is going on here?” he said, crossing his arms again and giving them both very frustrated looks. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Unfortunately not,” Sherlock said, looking over at John, who was trying desperately to telepathically send him the message, “You can tell him about fairies. Just don’t tell him about me.” Sherlock seemed to get the message somehow, because the next moment, he said, “John, would you like to explain?”

John nodded reluctantly. Lestrade was staring, gazing underneath a raised eyebrows with a mouth pressed into a thin line of concern. John sighed. "Basically..." he began, scratching the back of his neck - "They're fairies. Both of them, it's... it's what they are."

Lestrade drew out the pause far too long for it to be comfortable. “Are you on something?” he asked.

 _Oh bugger. Here we go again._ John looked over at Sherlock for help, but he had pulled out his magnifying glass and was looking at Hamilton’s fingernails. “Er,” he started again, “I know it’s really hard to believe. And actually very ridiculous sounding. But… you know, you saw it for yourself…”

“I’m serious, John.”

“So am I.”

“So you’re trying to tell me,” Lestrade said, drawing out the sentence in order to convey his skepticism, “that this… woman, is actually a fairy? A bloody fairy?”

“Um. Yes, actually. Yes.”

"Like a children's picture book, hiding in the foliage, magic dust nonsense  _fairy?"_

"Well, no. But... it's a little bit like that, yes, I suppose. Less tiny, though."

“Oh god.” Lestrade sighed, and threw his hands up in the air. “All this time I thought you were actually a normal, sensible bloke…”

 _If only you knew_ , John thought bitterly. “Look, do these wings _look_ fake?”

Lestrade sighed again, and crouched down next to the body to inspect them again. John crouched down with him. “They… _don’t_ look fake,” Lestrade said reluctantly, running his fingers along them carefully. “Don’t feel fake, either. But you just can’t possibly expect me to believe… bloody _fairies_ , John.”

“I know it’s ridiculous,” John agreed. “But how could you possibly deny it, when it’s literally lying right in front of you?”

“Because you’re telling me to believe in a fairy tale,” Lestrade answered, sounding less and less sure of himself by the second. “Some things are just impossible, John. This is one of them.”

“They used to believe that moving pictures were impossible.”

“That’s different,” Lestrade protested. He looked back down at Linda Mason’s wings – John swallowed, pulling his own wings closer to himself underneath his sweater. “That’s science.”

“Well, maybe this is, too.” John sat down next to the body and began looking it over, checking for any marks or clues that he hadn’t seen before. “Maybe it’s just biology.”

Lestrade was silent.

“Think about it like this,” John continued. “There used to be more species of humans then there are now. You know – Neanderthals. You see them in museums all the time. So why couldn’t there be a species of human that could fly, maybe, and instead of dying out they just sort of… blended in with _homo sapiens_? Maybe there were so few of them that they sort of became myth, and people turned them into something magical and so now people don’t believe in them. Why is that so implausible?”

After a moment of stiff silence, Lestrade opened his mouth, paused, and spoke.

“How do _you_ know so much about them?” he said.

 _Shit,_ John thought, thinking as fast as he could. “I had some friends, back in Afghanistan. They were fairies. We fought together.”

Lestrade thought for another moment. “And these… fairies, they… they act like humans?” he asked hesitantly.

Something deep inside the pit of John’s stomach starts to twist and curl. The way Lestrade said “act like humans,” had sounded a lot more like “impersonate humans,” as if fairies were deceitful, and trying to fool people to infiltrate society, instead of just blend with it.

He straightened himself up and pursed his lips. “They’re just like humans,” he said. “They’re people. Just… they’ve got wings.”

Lestrade creased his eyebrows, unbelieving. “And… they can _fly_?”

John nodded, trying desperately not to think about flying – what it felt like, how much it had been a part of him, how much he ached, every single day, to do it again. How a sickening feeling that overcame every cell in his body reminded him each time that he mustn’t, couldn’t, and won’t.

Lestrade sighed, a resigned sigh, and he pulled himself off of the floor and stood, towering over where John still sat with Linda Mason’s body. Sherlock looked up from his post at Esme Hamilton, waiting for Lestrade’s response – John realized that he had been listening in to the entire conversation.

“You two deal with this,” he said, shaking his head and turning. “I need to think.”

John nodded, although Lestrade didn’t see – Sherlock waited until he was out of earshot before he spoke.

“I think he took that rather well,” he said.

John stood, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, we avoided any histrionics – I’d say that alone is a good start.”

John wasn’t convinced. “Did you hear the way he talked about them… about… _us_? It was like he didn’t even think fairies could be people.”

“He was shaken, John. Give him time, he’ll come around.”

“He was talking about _me_ ,” John persisted, still not convinced. “Even if he didn’t know it. I can’t tell him, ever, if that’s what he thinks about fairies. If he knew, he’d never treat me the same way again.”

“Don’t be absurd. Lestrade–”

“–is just like everyone else in the world,” John finished, spitting out the words as if they’d been swelling in his salivary glands, filling his mouth up and stagnating until they were expelled with a final _splat._  “You don’t understand, Sherlock. People don’t treat me the way you treat me. You’re different. People _hate_ me, Sherlock. I know you think that’s irrational, but people _are_ irrational. And I know you don’t think I should let what happened in primary school get to me. But I was _tortured_. No one spoke to me, not even teachers, or adults. I was just a _kid_ and they treated me like I was dangerous. That’s how people are, and it’s how they always will be. If someone’s different, and they’re a way you can’t understand, you label that person a monster because there’s nothing else you can do. Lestrade _won’t_ come around – don’t tell me that he will. Not everyone can be fucking special like you, Sherlock. Don’t act like you understand what it’s like to have everyone who knows the real you be afraid of you, because you will never, _never_ know what it’s like.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, but nothing seemed to come out of it.

Barely containing a sigh, John turned around and stared out the window at nothing in particular. He could hear Lestrade talking outside, but couldn’t hear what he was saying.

The baritone voice slithered past his ear so quietly that he almost didn’t catch it at first.

“I do know what it’s like,” Sherlock said.

John turned back, looking his flatmate in the eyes. There was something on his face that John couldn’t quite place – it looked sort of sad, but not exactly.

Sherlock looked at him in a way that felt less like looking _at_ him and more like looking _into_ him. He held his gaze for a second, then cast his eyes down to the floor. “You’re not the only one who’s a monster.”

John opened his mouth to speak, with no idea what he was about to say, when suddenly Lestrade walked back into the room. Donovan was with him.

“Right,” he said, looking back down at the two bodies and putting his hands on his hips. “Donovan says she knows these… fairies are for real, so I guess that’s that.”

“I dated one, once,” she said, in her casual yet generally insulting tone. “Dumped it as soon as I found it was one of these things. It actually tried to take me home, the freak.”

John’s knees felt weak and his skin dropped a few degrees – he felt like he was about to vomit.

He looked over at Sherlock, needing… needing something, comfort, maybe, support, and saw that his flatmate was standing stock still, barely breathing.

“ _He,_ ” Sherlock said, his voice smooth but with the intensity of a laser. John knew that voice – it was the pinpoint tone of Sherlock’s rage, concentrated and channeled into a razor-sharp verbal blade.

Donovan seemed oblivious to Sherlock’s dangerous tone. “What?” she said, her body slouched in a way meant to convey just exactly how few fucks she gave about anything.

“ _He_ tried to take you home,” Sherlock continued, standing up straighter. “Unless this person was a _she_ – you did neglect mentioning a gender, although I can only assume that you’re going to stand by your as-of-yet unquestioned heterosexual status. You dumped _him._ ”

Lestrade drew in his breath, confused but aware of the storm that was approaching. Donovan crossed her arms.

“I don’t even know if they _have_ genders,” she said, raising an eyebrow but keeping her eyes halfway closed in boredom.

“I should have expected as much from you,” Sherlock retorted, spitting out the last word in the same way he said words like “normal” and “emotion.” “You meet a person who’s just a little bit different, so you immediately label them a freak just so you can feel better about yourself.”

Donovan seemed taken aback, and John was frozen to the spot. Something occurred to him – he remembered the first crime scene he’d been to with Sherlock, the first time he’d met Donovan. She’d dismissed Sherlock immediately, casually tossing out, “Freak’s here,” as he walked into the building. He hadn’t looked fazed by it at all, as if it was something he was used to – which was maybe the point.

Something told him that maybe Sherlock wasn’t only talking about fairies just now.

Within another moment, Donovan pulled herself back together. “Why are _you_ so upset about all this?” she asked, looking Sherlock up and down. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were one of them or something.”

“I’m not,” Sherlock said, his voice still that blazing inferno of ice. “I don’t need to be a fairy to understand that they are as much of people as any of us are. Probably more so than you.”

Donovan wasn’t fazed in the slightest. “So what, you think that they’re human or something?” she scoffed, not hiding her disgust.

“No.” Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, but his face remained perfectly composed. “I think that you didn’t tell the _entire_ story. Ithink that you weren’t just dating this fairy – you were engaged to him. Judging by the marks on your finger, your undershirt and your hand soap, I’d say that _he_ was the one who dumped _you_ when you were disgusted with him, and you feel so bitter about it that you feel compelled to lie and make it seem like he wasn’t _human enough_ to deserve you.”

Donovan was silent for a long time. John looked over at her, and sucked in a breath – she seemed to be shaking.

“I don’t care what you think,” she said finally. “Yeah, you’re right, we were engaged. But if there’s anything I should be ashamed of, it’s of being fooled by him for so long. He tricked me into thinking he was human, and I fell for it. These _things_ don’t think like people and they _aren’t_ people. I don’t know why the fuck you think that they are. I guess that freaks stick up for other freaks, don’t they?”

Lestrade started to say something, but she held up a hand and he held his tongue. She marched out of the room, clenching her fists, still seeming to shake.

A pregnant moment passed. Lestrade let out a long breath.

“She…” he began, but stopped, unsure of what to say next.

The silence carried on a bit longer.

“Look, John,” he said finally, closing his eyes and sighing again. “You seem to know a lot about these thi– _people_ , right?”

John nodded. He prayed that his stomach wouldn’t try to force his lunch back up his throat.

“Are they… are they really just like humans?” he asked.

“Yes,” John said immediately. He needed at least one person to prove to him that maybe the entire world wasn’t out to kill him. He needed Lestrade to erase the glaring echo of “it” that was branding itself onto his brain.

Lestrade sighed for the third time. “I trust you, then,” he said, clearing his throat and putting his business face on. “Donovan will sort herself out. Meanwhile, we’ve got two dead bodies that can’t have possibly died – let’s get on with it, then.”

•••

Sherlock plops down next to John – just a bit too close, perhaps, but his brain is flying in far too many directions to notice such an irrelevant social marker. For a split second, he can see Lestrade smirk in his peripheral vision, and ignores it after taking a moment to register what it means. He only moves closer to John, as if to spite the world.

“How are you faring?” John asks, looking up.

Sherlock doesn’t answer directly. John knows full well what’s running through his head right now, so he needn’t bother sparing the breath to only reiterate what is most likely obvious. Instead, he only huffs. “This is absurd, John.”

“I know.”

“There is _no possible explanation_.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“ _None_ , John.”

“I know.”

Overtaken by a sudden burst of frustration, Sherlock swivels to look his friend in the eye. “This has _never happened before,_ John,” he emphasizes.

To his irritation, John chuckles. “You’ve been stumped on cases before,” he says.

Sherlock bristles – this is hardly the time to be reminded of his past failures. “This is different, John. There is absolutely no indication to a cause of death. I have checked for literally every single type of poison known to the human race, and each test has come up negative. There is no sign of a struggle or any type of injury, both women were in perfect health. It’s as if they literally just dropped dead.”

He waits for John to understand his frustration, but – to his even further frustration – his friend seems to be deep in thought.

“What?” he practically snaps, sitting up straighter.

John opens his mouth, closes it again, and looks at Sherlock with that scrunchy-eyed expression he gets when he’s just thought of something, that expression that really shouldn’t be as endearing as it is. Sherlock scowls to himself, shoving the thought away.

“Every type of poison known to the human race?” he asks.

Sherlock nods, wondering where this is going.

“The _human_ race?” he repeats.

Realization dawns on Sherlock, immediately followed by confusion. “John…” he says, his tone low and warning – “What are you thinking?”

With a long, long sigh, John looks up at him. His face is resigned.

“I think it’s time we give my sister a ring,” he says.


	6. Dring

After god-knows-how-many years of being drunk-dialed by more people than he can count, John has reached the point where he can hear intoxication on someone’s breath through the phone lines before they even mangle their first word. This time, however, it’s different – he can _feel_ the inebriation seeping through the thin receiver, a physical substance that squeezes itself out of the miniscule grate and makes it way down his ear canal.

Oh god. He knew this was a horrible idea.

After a beat, during which John imagines the strong smell of alcohol and drool, a stupendously wasted voice slurs from the other end, “Yallo?”

John sighs in what may be part exasperation and part resignation. “Harry… we talked about this just yesterday.”

“Wha’?” comes the response. The pathetic tone is pleading for innocence.

He sighs again. “Where did you even get that… whatever you’re drinking?”

“Scotch. Mmmmm.”

“Right. Whatever it is. _Where_ did you get it?” He closes his eyes, imagining a number of scenarios, all equally bad. “We cleaned out your cupboard _yesterday_. I thought you gave me all the booze. Did you… oh god, you were hiding some somewhere, weren’t you?”

She pauses for far too long. “Noooo,” she answers, dragging the word out until it was hardly a word anymore. She giggles.

“I… fine. I’m coming over later, just so you know, and stripping down every floorboard if I have to,” he tells her. “It’s just… I really needed you sober right now, Harry. It’s really important.”

Harry pauses for a very long time. “Are... ‘r you ma’ a’… a’ me?” she says quietly, almost whimpering.

For a moment, John feels a pang of guilt, but brushes it off and goes back to being irritated. “Er, a little, yeah,” he huffs, remaining as calm as he can. “I really thought you were going to be better about this, you know. The _one time_ that _I_ need _you_ instead of the other way ‘round, and you can’t even…” He trails off, wondering why his throat is starting to constrict. “Never mind.”

“Was juss _wwwun_ dring,” she protests. “One issy-bissy li’ul drink.”

“Yeah, sorry if I don’t believe you.”

Harry says nothing.

John sighs again. “Fine. Fine. You know what, it can wait. Just don’t drink anymore for now. I’ll call you when you’re sober.”

“I... cin be, righ’ n… now.”

Pulling in a sharp breath, he spits out his answer immediately – “No. Don’t you dare.”

“Aw, c’mo-o-on... I’ve... done i’ bef’re.”

“No. It’s not safe.” He’s gripping the phone a bit too tightly now – the sharp edges are digging into the flesh of his fingers. “You shouldn’t – _no one_ should ever cast spells when they’re drunk. _Especially_ on themselves, for god’s sake.”

“I can... can do it.”

“Harry. _No._ ” He’s beginning to panic.

“Watch...” she says, and before John can even cry out, he hears a _woosh_ coming from the other end and then a sort of _thwack_. After a few tense seconds in which John wonders if his world has just been torn apart, a quick and most decidedly _not_ drunk voice quips from the other end – “Ta fuckin’ da, little bro.”

He sighs, for what seems to be the hundredth time in the past minute. Sherlock, still sitting next to him, leans over with a quizzical look, asking “What’s going on?” with his eyes. Silently, John responds – “Nothing. I’ll deal with it,” and turns back to the mobile.

“Please stop doing that,” he says into the receiver, using his irritation and years of military training to mask the slight tremor in his voice. “That isn’t safe. You’re going to hurt yourself one of these days.”

“Hm. One of these days,” his sister says with a patronizing laugh. “You sound just like Dad, Johnny. ‘One of these days you’ll fall off that skateboard and break your neck, Harriet.’ ‘One of these days, you’ll fly into a power line and get electrocuted, John.’ Well, little brother, that day hasn’t happened yet, and I’ll tell you what – if it does, I owe you a fiver.”

John puts his head in his hands. While a drunk Harry Watson is a force to be reckoned with, a sober Harry Watson could rival even Sherlock Holmes himself.

“I’m serious, Harry,” he says. “I know you think you’re better at all this magic stuff than most people, but… it’s just logically not safe.”

“Oh come on. Spell-casting while drunk? Trust me, I’ve had enough practice.” Harry says the last bit with just a hint of despondency, but immediately goes back to her sarcastically cheerful self. “The worst it’s ever done for me is amplify my hangover, which should start in three, two... _ow._ ”

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve perfected this sobering-up spell down to a ‘T’, Harry. It’s just too dangerous, no matter how practiced you think you are.”

“You underestimate my abilities, kid brother.”

“And _you_ underestimate the power of single-malt whiskey.”

“Enough pleasantries.” John can hear a shifting sound in the background, and imagines his sister sprawling out on her favorite corner of the well-stained couch that John had seen her sleep, jump, and cry on. “You said you wanted something. What?”

He takes a deep breath. “Sherlock and I are on a case–”

“Sherlock?” She laughs, heartily. “Your psychopath boyfriend?”

 _Oh god_ , John thinks. “He’s not–”

“Your boyfriend, I know, I know. You can keep saying that, no one believes you.”

John opens his mouth to correct her, and realizes what he’s about to say, and what just happened in his head. “I was going to say that he’s not a psychopath,” he tells her.

“Are you sure?” She thinks about it for a moment. “Well, sure, whatever, you know him better than I do. He’s probably got Asperger’s or something. I mean, Clara has Asperger’s.”

John jerks back his head in surprise. The last time his sister talked about her ex-wife, she was sobbing into his shoulder and clutching an empty bottle of scotch – how could she be so casual about it now? He had spent enough years as her brother to know full well that her nonchalant attitude was just a mask for whatever she was really feeling on the inside, which was most likely the only kind of pain John had never felt himself and a thirst that could only be quenched by some _aqua vitae._ He also knew that she would, under no circumstances, reveal her true inner thoughts to anyone but him, and even that took some work – and occasionally some imbibing, although he avoided that method at all costs.

“So...” she goes on, breaking him out of his thoughts – “You. Your boyfriend. What’s going on? Did you get in a fight? God, you’re not breaking up, are you?”

John closes his eyes. “Har... no. I... it’s about the _case_ , Harry.”

“Oh.” He can hear her fiddle with something on the other end. “Not nearly as fun.”

“Since when do you call meddling in my relationships ‘fun’?” he asks, bristling.

“A- _ha!_ ” she shouts, louder than she really should. “So you’ve finally stopped denying that you two are in a relationship?”

 _Fuck_ , he thinks. _Fuck everything._ “No, I mean... that’s not what I meant. I... in general, I mean. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve tried to make my girlfriend hate me, would it?” _Wait, what did I just say?_

“Ha!” she shouts again. “So he’s your _girlfriend_ now, is he?”

“Sod off, Harry,” he sighs.

“Okay,” says Harry, and hangs up the phone.

•••

It’s only when John puts the mobile back in his pocket that he notices Sherlock, who hasn’t moved from his side. He jolts just a little, but relaxes, all over the course of a nanosecond or two.

“What happened?” Sherlock asks.

John lets out a breath. “She was just… her usual cheery self.”

“You didn’t seem to get what you wanted from her.”

“No.” John looks at him with a look that he’s seen on Sherlock’s face so many times, at any mention of Mycroft. He supposes there must be some sort of universal look for younger siblings to use when their sisters or brothers got irritating, which was most of the time. “She got mad, it seems, and pulled a complete Harry Watson and just hung up on me.”

“Are you going to try to call her again?”

“No. I knew this was a bad idea.”

Sherlock pauses for a moment, and John can see the cogs in his brain working. He looks as if he’s debating whether or not to bring something up. “What did you mean about that?” he asks, after a while. “About… spell-casting?”

John shifts uncomfortably in his seat and closes his eyes, trying not to sigh – again. “She’s… well, she’s always been really good at spells and things. Ever since we were kids. She used to lord it over me as much as she could – I mean, I can’t cast a spell to save my life. I sort of mean that literally.” He laughs, a little. “Anyway, I guess it’s sort of a trade off – I got the wings, she got the magic.” When Sherlock says nothing, John continues, fully aware that he’s going into a bit of a rant. “She’s learnt every spell I’ve ever heard of, and a handful of others, including this sobering-up spell she’s got mastered. Except, it’s supposed to be used on _other people_ , never yourself. Harry of all people should know that you should _never_ cast spells when you’re drunk, or when you’re in any other state that compromises your cognitive facilities. But she’s… she’s, you know, she’s Harry. She has no common sense, and she never listens.”

Sherlock says nothing.

It’s only after a few seconds of complete silence that John realizes that something is very wrong.

“What’s going on in there?” he asks, with a nod towards Sherlock’s brain.

His friend stays silent for another moment or two.

“Magic?” he says finally.

John stares at him, and stops breathing when he realizes what he’s just done. _You, John Watson_ , he thinks, smacking the insides of his skull _, are a true idiot._

_You just turned his entire world upside down and you didn’t even realize it._

It takes a true expert to decode Sherlock’s emotions just by looking at his face, as they’re buried in the subtlest of twitches and twinges and facial irregularities – in other words, it takes a John Watson. As John peers into his friend’s eyes now – the two men so close together and yet miles apart, one behind the other as per usual but with the order switched – he sees a mass of confusion pulsating like the deepest throngs of a crowd, and he sees what might be fear, and what is definitely distress, and something else that feels a lot like drowning.

Sitting back and breathing out, he can see it plain as day – Sherlock’s brain folding in on itself, a tidal wave of right and wrong, the hideous and slow suicide of self-doubt. “When you eliminate the impossible,” he remembers him saying once, “whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

John knows in one painful moment that is crushed by the weight of letting down the person that matters most to you in the world; he know that what he’s just done has ensured that Sherlock will never be able to eliminate the impossible again.

•••

Sherlock doesn’t say a word for the entire cab ride back to the flat, partly because he has nothing to say but mostly because he feels like any sound he tries to force up his throat would choke him. John glances at him warily from time to time, but still Sherlock says nothing. It’s only when the two of them reach their living room and John is peeling off his loathsome nylon coat that he lets his thoughts erupt from his lips, like they’ve been trying to do for the past half an hour.

“How do you do it?” he practically yells.

John jumps, and turns towards him. He looks sad – so sad that Sherlock almost calms down. “Do what?”

“ _This!_ ” Sherlock screeches, waving his hands in every direction, gesturing to the floor, ceiling, windows, and the incredible, infuriating, impossible man standing in front of him.

John coughs. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

“How do you live, every day of your life, knowing that…” Sherlock falters as his insides start to slow their turbulence. “Knowing that…” He’s going to have to say the word sooner or later. “Knowing that _it_ is real?” Later, then.

John’s expression is reeking with sympathy, and Sherlock feels a surge of anger. “I grew up with it, Sherlock,” he says, gently. The softness of his voice pulls at something deep in Sherlock’s chest – he can feel himself loosening, relaxing, coming apart. “I never really thought about magic as something special, or impossible. It’s just… it’s a part of life.”

“But what _is_ it?” Sherlock hisses, trying to channel his rage from before but finding his supply of fury somewhat depleted. “You can’t expect me to believe that there’s just some sort of… some sort of _force_ that lets impossible things happen with no explanation whatsoever.”

John shakes his head. “There are lots of branches of magic, just like in science,” he begins, but seems to think better of it and starts over. “Think of it like this: what we call science is the bits of how the Universe works that can be explained through mathematics. But the Universe is a lot more complicated than just mathematics. There are lots of other parts of how the world works that can’t possibly be explained in numbers, and because of that most people can’t understand them. And those are the parts we call magic.”

Sherlock says nothing. His brain is racing and racing and racing.

“Most people think seem to think that magic is just, I dunno, wave a wand and say funny words and things that aren’t supposed to happen happen,” John continues. His tone is cautious, as if he is stepping over an emotional minefield. “But it’s just science, like I said. There are lots of different branches and they all work in different ways. If you can figure out how they work, and learn how to manipulate them, then… that’s doing magic. That’s what spell-casting is. That’s all it is.”

His voice is attempting to be comforting, but Sherlock is far from comforted. He stares in front of him, looking at his flatmate as if he’s never seen him before – which he’s not entirely sure he has.

It is a very long time before he finds his voice again.

“I… believe so much for you,” he says, his words far weaker than they had sounded in his head.

John says nothing.

“Impossible things,” Sherlock continues. “I believe in impossible things like… fairies, or _magic_. Illogical things, things that should never be taken seriously. But I believe in them now and it’s all because you told me to, and because you need me to. I can never know anything for sure again and it’s all because I _trust_ you and I do not for the life of me know why.”

John is quiet for a very long time.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, and in his voice is a kindness that makes Sherlock ache.

He looks at John, and wonders how long it’s going to be before he loses him, before he makes him rot from the inside out and pushes him away. The thought makes him feel cold, sick, and so tired. He closes his eyes.

“I’m going to bed,” he mutters, and stalks off down the hallway without even bothering to take off his coat. If he did, he’d have to turn around and look John in the face, and John might see his heart beating through his eyes; that little organ going faster and slower than usual, all at once.

 


	7. The Golden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, guys! I was away from my computer for a week (in Canada). So here ya go.

_Cold,_ John thinks.

 _Why is that important?_ he wonders.

An hour later, he realizes why.

•••

“Where are you going?” Sherlock asks. He lies on the couch, splayed out, his arms visibly itching from the (forced) lack of nicotine patches. He didn’t look up when John rose from his seat, but now he blinks his recently opened eyes at the sight of John donning his jacket near the door.

“The morgue,” John says, and throws Sherlock’s coat on top of him without any further explanation. “You’re coming, too. Get up.”

Sherlock bolts upright and starts slipping his arms into the sleeves. “What–”

“I’ve been an idiot,” John says, walking towards the door. Sherlock sees him glance discreetly, almost wistfully at that present, that coat, that’s still slung over the back of a chair in the living room; untouched since Sherlock presented it to him that very morning. Again, Sherlock feels that uncomfortable tug somewhere near the back of his ribcage that he’s been feeling all too often for the past couple of weeks. Again, he ignores it.

He snaps out of his thoughts when he hears John continue, the two of them walking down the stairs in tandem. “I told you that I couldn’t do any spells,” he says, reaching the bottom floor. “Well, that is pretty much true. But I can do this _one_ thing, although it’s not exactly a spell, and it’s not anything special, since most fairies can do it anyway and it’s basically comes naturally. I don’t even notice I’m doing it.”

Sherlock stares at him, his mind going blank. John turns and opens his mouth to speak, but stops when he sees his flatmate’s expression.

“What?” he asks.

If Sherlock’s breathing, he can’t feel it. More thoughts than usual are racing around in his head, and not the good kind – the bad, nonsensical, personal kind. _How is it,_ he thinks, _that every single day you just keep becoming more and more incredible?_

Instead, he just asks, “Go on then, what is it?”

John purses his lips, and tilts his head. “Have you ever heard of the lith?” he asks.

•••

“Take us the long route,” John tells the cabbie. “We’re going to need some time.”

The cabbie gives him a look, but nods and turns back to the wheel.

Sherlock settles down beside him. He looks at John expectantly, trying to mask his pure childlike curiosity with an expression of indifference – which might’ve worked on anyone else. Sherlock says nothing, but waits for his flatmate to speak.

John takes a deep breath. This is going to be one hell of a cab ride.

“It’s a very complicated concept…” he begins hesitantly. “I’ve been learning about it all my life so it’ll be a bit difficult to explain in fifteen minutes or so…”

Sherlock says nothing, but his eyes urge John to cut to the chase.

John nods to himself. “Do you know,” he says, “when people say, about two people who really like each other or get along very well or maybe love each other, that they’ve really got a bond?”

After receiving a small nod from his flatmate, he continues.

“Er, the thing is…” He falters. “There _is_ a real bond. When two people love each other, in any way, shape or form – they could be siblings, or a parent and a child, or friends, or, married, or something – there is an actual, physical bond that exists between them. But, it exists on a different physical plane than people do, so we can’t see them or interact with them. But they’re everywhere, floating around, invisible to the naked eye.” He glances out the window, his eyes drifting over all the people outside. “There are thousands of these things, connecting you to everyone you care about, and connecting everyone in the world to someone else, somehow. Most people have lots of them, one for every person they love. And it just sort of… floats about, between the two people it connects. It’s like a giant spider web that you can’t see, but it’s everywhere. They’re called the lith.”

He turns back to his friend, inwardly appreciating the rare occurrence of Sherlock’s face looking genuinely confused. The man is staring at him so intently, with so much wonder, that… something. That _something_ – definitely something. John doesn’t know quite what. Something behind his ribcage.

He shakes his head. _Anyway_.

“A lith is sort of like a big rope-like thing that starts at one person and snakes about until the other end connects with the other person,” he continues. “It’s made out of lith energy, which comes in the form of lith strands. They’re these tiny little strings of lith energy that float about randomly in empty space, until they find two people who’ve got some sort of emotional connection. If the connection is strong enough, one end of the strand latches onto one of the people and the other end latches onto the other person, and that starts a new lith. As the two people get closer and closer, emotionally speaking, more lith strands will join on and the lith will keep growing. So the bigger the lith, the bigger the bond between the two people. Does this make any sense to you?”

 “Yes,” Sherlock says. “And I can’t possibly believe a word of it.”

John nods. “Great. We’re doing just fine, then.”

After a moment or two spent wondering what he should say next, he continues. “Lith energy is…” he begins, and stops, wondering if there’s any possible way to say what he’s about to say without sounding like some awful song from the eighties, synthesizer and all. “…well, it’s basically, what it is is… it’s basically the energy of love. God, that did sound awful, that sounded even _worse_ than what it sounded like in my head. What I mean by that is, lith energy is this force that makes up a good part of the universe – it’s half energy, half matter. Some sort of in between magicky thing. It’s a positive energy that for some reason is extremely attracted to sentient life. The more aware the life form, the more the lith is attracted to it – that would explain why lith energy seems to be most affiliated with humans and fairies. What happens is, it sort of… well, it surrounds us and weaves itself into our beings and our souls, if you want to call it that. And our brains interpret the lith energy that we’re feeding off of as things like happiness, and love, mostly. Love is just what we call the feedback of lith energy. It’s the lith energy being filtered through our brains.”

Sherlock opens his mouth, and keeps it open for a moment or two before speaking. “So what you’re saying is,” he begins, “that love is just physics? Love is some mathematical energy that neurons translate into emotions? That seems very unlike you, John, to say something like that.”

John sighs and shifts uncomfortably. “That’s… not really what I mean,” he says. “Love isn’t physics, and it isn’t chemicals, either. Just the same way that lith energy isn’t mathematics. The lith aren’t just a force, or an equation. They’re part of the fabric of the universe. What I’m saying, I… what I mean is, what we call ‘love’ is our very simple minds trying to comprehend the entire universe being thrust into our brain and making us a part of everything there ever was and is and will be.”

Sherlock watches him for a moment, and settles back in his seat, looking forward. “How very poetic of you, John,” he scoffs.

John sighs. “I should have known you weren’t going to take this seriously.”

“I _am_ taking this seriously. I am very interested in this concept – however, I do not think that there is any particular need for sensationalist language and extended metaphors.”

“It’s not a metaphor,” John responds, growing slightly irritated. “That’s literally what it is. I know that this is hard for you to understand, but you don’t have to be a complete pretentious prick about it.”

“I’m not being pretentious.”

“That’s a good one, Sherlock.”

Sherlock is silent for a moment.

“How does any of this connect to the case?” he asks.

“Oh, right.” John collects his thoughts again. “Er, see, the thing about lith is that they do a lot more than just connect two people. They sort of bury themselves in the people they’re attached to, and become entangled with that person’s own energy. So, sometimes that person’s… soul, sort of, leaves fingerprints on the lith, and vice versa.

“The thing is, fairies are naturally closer to lith. Just sort of… more in tune with them, I guess.” He adjusted himself in the seat and continued. “Humans are a physically based species. You’re far more likely to die from a knife wound than a broken heart. But fairies are the opposite. We’re an emotionally based species. A fairy could actually die of greif, if it was bad enough. I mean, yes, we can still be hurt and killed physically… but we have ways to fix our physical selves when they’re not so badly broken. And even when we can’t heal ourselves, it’s still different.”

He’s aware of Sherlock staring at him far too closely, and he clenches his hand. “You were shot,” Sherlock says, saying nothing more.

 “Yeah. That. Well.” He pauses. “There’s a reason my limp’s psychosomatic.”

“And what is that?”

John closes his eyes. “Not now, Sherlock. Just… later, alright?”

He can feel Sherlock nodding beside him.

After a moment or two of relative silence, he jolts back to reality with a bump in the road and jerk in the cab. “Erm… right, I was going somewhere with this. Hang on. …Right. What I mean to say is… what I’m getting at with all of this is that I can sort of… not really _feel_ the lith, but sort of… I dunno, sense them. Just a little, the tiniest bit. It’s sort of a… warmth. Just, everywhere. All over my skin, when I get close.”

Sherlock peers at him out of the corner of his eye. “Didn’t you say that there are thousands of lith crisscrossing across the world, constantly?”

“Well, yeah, there are,” John concedes. “But some are bigger than others, you know, a bit more warm. It’s like when you walk into a cold spot of air and then into a warm spot. And like I said, it’s just a really small feeling, I barely notice it.”

At this, Sherlock finally turns to look him in the eye. “So what did you notice?” he asks. “At the crime scene.”

John pauses, thinking. “When someone dies, their lith don’t go away immediately. It takes the lith ages to finally detach and float off – but that’s only if one person on one end of the lith dies. If one person dies and the other stays alive, the lith might hang around the dead person for a while, like it doesn’t somehow… get the message, that that person is dead. Sometimes it can take years for the lith to detach, and then it takes years after that for the other end to get off the person who’s still alive. But when both people on either end of the lith die at more or less the same time, give or take a few days or months, the lith between them sort of… supernovas.”

“Supernovas,” Sherlock repeats.

“Er, yes.” John nods. “What I mean is, it sort of… collapses in on itself, just one big collision of lith energy with nowhere to go. It makes a sort of burst of… whatever it is the lith gives off, which gives someone like me a whole lot of that warm feeling. The excess warmth can take months to fade away.”

He stops for a moment. “Where are you going with this?” Sherlock asks.

“Where I’m going is, they were flatmates for a long time, weren’t they?” John tilts his head. “And you could tell that they were in love, couldn’t you? I mean, _I_ could, and I’m not the world’s only consulting detective.”

Sherlock nods.

“So they’d have a pretty big lith, right?”

He nods again.

“And… they died on the same day as one another?”

Another nod.

John peers up at his friend. “Then why was the room stone cold?” he asks.

“St. Bart’s Hospital,” the cabbie announces. “Took the longest route I could – mind you, mate, it’s gonna cost you.”

•••

“I knew her, sort of,” Molly says, with that slightly-painful smile of hers. “That one, Esme Hamilton. My niece, Sophie, went to her daycare once. She was nice.”

John opens his eyes and gives her a small smile, to fill the deafening silence of Sherlock not caring in the slightest about anything she had to say. The detective stares at the two bodies, looking for all the world as if he’s trying to see the invisible. His eyes narrow.

Standing aside, John watches his friend scrutinize the cadavers, and eventually closes his eyes. He lets his breathing slow, and concentrates.

Cold. The room is… cold. It smells like death and feels like the end. There’s a small spot of warmth to his left – Molly’s few lith, drifting off through the walls and under cracks in the doors. He tries not to focus on Sherlock. He’s not exactly sure what he’ll find, and he’s not sure if he really wants to know.

Opening his eyes, John takes a step and peers over the bodies. They look just as dead as any other cadavers he’s seen, and he’s seen quite a few. Hesitantly, he reaches his hand out into the air above them; he jerks it back, his pulse quickening.

“What do you feel?” asks a voice behind him. John jumps – a bit more tense than he’d thought he was, apparently.

“Er – nothing,” he answers. Sherlock’s face appears beside his. “I can’t feel anything at all. It’s completely cold.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be cold?” asks Molly, who John hadn’t realized was listening in. “They… they are dead, after all.”

“It’s complicated,” John answers.

The room is silent for a moment. Molly shrinks off to the corner.

“Golden,” John mutters.

Sherlock looks over. “What?”

The fairy shakes his head. “Nothing, I…” He breathes in, and turns. “Just… golden. Golden light.”

For a moment, it seems as if he can feel Molly tensing across the room – he glances in her direction, and she doesn’t look any different.

“My sister… she can see them, sometimes.” He sighs. “Just another thing she used to hold over my head. She knows spells that can let you see them, just for a little while, until it wears off. They’re really complicated so I… she says they look like golden light.”

Sherlock turns his eyes to the empty space above the stiffs. “Golden light?” he repeats.

“Big, sort of, ropey things.” John casts his eyes to the floor. “Like bridges going from one person to another, made out of pure golden light.”

The miniscule symphony of glass breaking shatters the quiet in the small room. The two men whip around towards its source; Molly is standing in front of a smashed beaker lying in fragments on the ground, her arm outstretched and fingers splayed, her face slackened with the weight of the world turning in her mind.

John steps over to her, quickly. “Are you all right?”

She can’t seem to find the strength to nod. After a moment or two of her mouth hanging open – “You know about them, too?”

His breath hitches in his throat. “About… what?”

Molly swallows, and holds his gaze. “The Golden.”

“The…” he begins, and falters. His heart is pounding faster. _Almost no humans know about the lith – but every fairy child learns about them when they grow up. So the only way she could possibly know what I’m talking about is if she’s…_

_If she’s…_

“Golden,” she says, her voice shaking. “I’m sorry, you… you were talking, about, golden light. I… are they… big, and they move, and they grow when you love someone?”

John nods.

“Oh my god.” Molly starts to wobble, and John grabs her arm, motioning for Sherlock to take the other. The two of them manage to get her to the only chair in the room, where she slumps over herself and – much to John’s shock – begins to weep.

“Molly, are you… are you alright?” he murmurs.

Her sobs only grow louder.

Two minutes later, she’s still crying. Sherlock tries to walk off, but stays when John shoots him a death glare and mouths something along the lines of, “She’s our friend and if you leave now I will bloody murder you.” After half a minute more, she runs out of fuel and begins to slow to quiet, half-choked gasps.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” John asks.

She nods, and when she looks at him, against all odds, she is smiling. “I thought… I was the only one,” she chokes out. Tears still dribble down her face. “Oh my god, so many years I thought. So many. I just… can’t believe. Oh my god.”

John says nothing – neither does Sherlock.

“Everyone said I was mad,” she says. Her voice is small and pitiful. “Growing up, you know. _I_ thought I was mad. But… they’re real?”

“Yes.” John takes a deep breath. “They’re called the lith. They’re real.”

“The… the _lith._ ” Molly repeats. She chokes down her last sob. “I always just called them the Golden, since I didn’t… I didn’t know what to call them.”

“You mean no one’s ever told you what they are before?” Something doesn’t click in John’s brain. “But… you still knew about them?”

“You’re the first person who’s ever known about them.” She looks like she might break down again.

“A lot of people know,” he tells her. “They’re very real.”

“I thought I was the only one who could see them,” she says, starting to cry.

John’s mouth drops open. His breathing stops for a moment or two. “ _See_ them?” he asks. “You can… _see_ them?”

“Yes. Can’t you?”

“No.” John stands up – his mind is malfunctioning. “No one can just… _see_ them. Do you mean, you use the spell so you can see them?”

Molly wipes her eyes and looks up. “Spell?” she repeats, confused.

“You don’t… cor, nevermind.” He covers his face with his hands and breathes deep. “Molly, you can’t just… you can’t just _see_ the lith. _No one_ can do that, no one ever has, ever.”

“Then how do you know about them?” she asks.

“My parents told me!” he answers. “Didn’t _your_ parents tell you about them when you were little?”

She looks at him as if he’s gone off the deep end. “My parents were the first ones to call me mad!” she says.

John shuts his eyes and puts a hand to his temple. _This doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes any sense._ When he opens his eyes, both Sherlock and Molly are staring at him, both of them waiting for him to make the next move.

_Then make the bloody move, Watson._

“Alright.” He steps over to Molly, looking her in the eye and seeing what he needs to know. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

“What…?” Molly asks.

John takes a deep breath. “We’re both going to take out our contact lenses,” he says.

Molly’s mouth drops open, slightly. “Wha… John, wh…. why?”

“Molly, take your contacts out,” he commands.

She jerks back, affronted. “No!” she squeaks – John can see the same fear he feels every day growing in the back of her eyes.

“That’s why,” he answers. “And also because I also don’t want to take mine out, possibly for the same reason.”

Her eyes widen almost imperceptibly. John notices.

“So, er, on the count of three then,” he decides. “We both take them out. Alright?”

After a moment, Molly nods.

“Okay.” John swallows, and lifts a hand to his eye. “One… two… three.”

He pulls his eyelid up and squeezes the tiny lens, pinching it out of his eye. It falls into his hand, and he looks up.

“Oh my god,” he says.

“Oh… oh wow,” Molly gasps.

“They’re–”

“It’s _purple_ ,” she says, in awe.

“…golden,” John finishes. “They’re… _golden._ ”

•••

John shuts his eyes against the glare of not understanding. “You’re human?” he asks, rounding on the woman in the lab coat. “Really?”

She steps back. “I… of course I’m human! What else would I _be?_ ”

“Okay, and what, then? You can just _see_ lith? All the time, everywhere?”

She nods. “Am I not supposed to be able to do that?”

“I don’t know,” John admits. “No one’s _ever_ done it before. It’s supposed to be impossible. Harry used to do research on it, she said so herself that it was just a legend.”

“Why did you ask if I’m human?”

He opens his eyes, and looks up. Sherlock is standing a few feet away from them, behind Molly, and now he meets his friend’s gaze. _Are you going to tell her?_ he asks silently.

 _I don’t know_ , John responds.

He’s still debating this when he remembers something important; he turns back to the impossible woman.

“What about these cadavers, then?” He nods his head at the table behind them. “What can you tell me about their lith?”

“Huh? Oh!” Molly jerks herself back into reality. “Um, I… I don’t know, really. I was very confused when they were brought in.”

“Why?” asks Sherlock, stepping up from behind. “What was unusual about them?”

“Well…” she begins hesitantly. “See, I work with cadavers a lot, so I’ve noticed… when two people die at the same time, there’s usually–”

“I know how it works.” John cuts her off. He squints his eyes at the two bodies. “So, er… what was wrong with the lith? With these two?”

“Well… the thing about the lith is…” She swallows. “I’m not exactly sure if this is right…”

“We haven’t got all day, and we’ve wasted enough time as it is,” Sherlock snaps. John steps on his foot.

Molly gives him a nervous smile. “The thing… about the lith is,” she says. “The thing about it is that there isn’t one. There’s no golden around either of the two bodies. Whatever was in them, or made them people – it’s all gone. There’s just… nothing. Nothing at all.”


	8. The Headache

For the first time in a long while, three a.m. has arrived without the slightest hint of drowsiness. John’s mind is acute to the point of being painful. Across the room, Sherlock shuts his laptop with a snap – the sound stabs straight through his skull. He winces, slowly opening his eyes.

Sherlock’s looking over at him, twisted around in his creaky chair, one elbow on the table. “What?” John asks, almost snapping.

“Are you alright?” Sherlock inquires.

John rubs his temple and breathes out, slowly. “You never ask if I’m alright.”

“That’s because I can usually tell,” the man answers. He moves his body around so he doesn’t have to twist his neck. “But here I am. Asking. Are you going to give me an answer or am I going to have to figure it out on my own?”

“Why do you care?” John mutters. “You never care about anyone, why start now?”

Sherlock pauses for a long while before asking, “Are you angry with me?”

John sighs. “No, I… sorry. Didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m… a bit on edge.”

“Why?”

“Why do you keep asking?”

Sherlock says nothing. John leans his head back against the wall behind the couch, and tries to focus on his breathing, eyes shut. The sound of a chair scraping backwards pierces his sore eardrums – he sucks in a breath at the pain – followed by footsteps, getting closer until–

“Sherlock, what–” he mumbles, but the detective’s already plopped himself down next to John, merely sitting at first but then curling himself around him, yanking John’s shoulders towards him and wrapping his arm behind his head. “Stop,” John protests, his skull pounding – but when Sherlock stops wriggling he finds himself in a surprisingly comfortable position, tucked into the curve of the tall man’s lanky frame, his head resting softly in the dip between Sherlock’s bony shoulder and his neck. Despite his sharp points and his skinny figure (filling out little by little, John notes approvingly) the man makes an oddly agreeable pillow.

“What… the _bloody hell_ are you doing?” John says, trying to look up at his friend but only managing to see the underside of his chin. He tries to wriggle free but each attempt sends a bolt of pain through his skull, so he in the end has no choice but to stay put.

“I’m attempting to relieve your headache,” Sherlock explains. “I’ve observed that you tend to relax more in certain conditions, so I’ve decided to try implementing those conditions to attain the maximum… of… well.” He shifts a little, and trails off.

John looks down at where Sherlock’s pale hand is wrapped loosely around his shoulders. “You wanker,” he comments.

Sherlock says nothing, but his hand tightens its grip.

The two are silent for what could have been seconds, and could have been minutes. The world is quieter than usual, it being such an early hour of the morning, and there isn’t much sound besides the ticking of the clock on the table and the beating of two hearts. John’s breathing slows and deepens. The stabbing pain in his skull fades to a quiet ache with each rise and fall of Sherlock’s chest, lifting John’s torso up just the slightest bit each time with the inflation.

The millions of thoughts that have been keeping John up all night don’t go away, but they quiet and simmer down, they recede into the darker recesses of his mind, take a backseat to other matters. John opens his eyes and stares at Sherlock’s long fingers, still gripping his shoulder. The way they’re holding him is so gentle and unexpected that for a moment, he isn’t entirely sure that he isn’t completely imagining their presence – but he can feel the pressure from each thin fingertip, pressing down through his jumper and onto his jangled nerves that continue to relax with each passing second. He breathes out slowly and closes his eyes.

“Is this what it’s like to be you all the time?” he asks.

They’re the first words that have been spoken in a long time, but Sherlock seemed to be expecting them. “What exactly do you mean?” he asks. His voice seems lower than usual, a deep, soft rumbling that washes over everything in John’s mind like a warm, very un-Sherlocklike way.

John wrinkles his brow, eyes still shut. “I can’t stop thinking about it. The case, the missing lith. I _need_ to know. It’s almost driving me insane. It’s consuming all of my thoughts, so much it hurts. Is this what it’s like for you, all the time?”

He can feel Sherlock nodding. “Only when I can’t solve a case, which is rarely.”

“Less rarely than you think,” John mutters, smiling.

Sherlock seems irritated for a moment, but seems to smile a little as well. “It will pass, eventually. What’s going on in your brain.”

John shakes his head. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Trust me,” Sherlock says, adjusting his fingers on John’s shoulders. For just the smallest fraction of a second, his thumb brushes against the bare skin of John’s neck. It’s only the barest of touches, but the feeling blossoms out from the point of contact, spreading within a second to every inch of his neck, tickling his shoulder and the underside of his chin.

He closes his eyes and leans closer into his best friend’s shoulder. Warmth is blooming in his chest like dye dropped in water. It spreads to every inch of each of his extremities, filling his fingers and toes with a feeling akin to hot tea going down your throat. He breathes out, slow and long.

“I do trust you,” he responds, before he really knows what he’s saying. The words slip out of his mouth on his warm breath, not entirely his own and yet the truest words he’s ever spoken. His mind jolts a little at the accuracy of that sentence – _I trust him more than I’ve ever trusted anyone. Is that smart, John? Is that safe?_

_Do I care?_

“Not really,” he whispers, to no one in particular.

“Hm?” Sherlock shifts a bit, trying to get a look at him.

“Nothing,” he mutters. Sherlock nods.

He closes his eyes again as his breathing continues to slow.

•••

A door slams in a distant room; John stirs. Sherlock watches him as his head moves backwards, each crick in his neck eliciting a short pop or crack. He blinks a few times, squinting his eyes at the brightness all around them.

“What…” he begins, looking down at himself and back at the detective.

“Morning,” Sherlock says. He reaches his arm up from where it’s been resting on John’s shoulders for the past five hours or so, and stretches it out.

John sits up quickly, sending a wave of shock through Sherlock’s body at the sudden loss of weight and warmth. Blood rushes to his right leg, which went numb hours ago, but he barely notices. His mind is focused on the spontaneous and uninvited cold which envelops his stomach and chest, and everywhere else that John had been just moments ago.

He breaks himself out of his thoughts when John turns towards him, a mortified look on his face. “Oh my god,” he says. “Did I… I did, didn’t I…”

“You fell asleep,” says Sherlock matter-of-factly. “Only natural, considering how tired you must have been after all that. I think I might have fallen asleep at some point as well, but I woke up somewhere around an hour ago.”

“Oh my god,” John repeats, getting up as quickly as possible and sending another bolt of cold through Sherlock’s skin. He stumbles with early-morningness – his wings send flashes of refracted morning sunlight in every direction. “I’m sorry, I can’t believe–”

“It’s… fine,” Sherlock says. He realizes that maybe he’s still a bit sleepy, too. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset about this.”

John spins around to him, still pounding the sleepiness out of his eyes with his palms. “Because… oh god, I just… fell asleep _on top_ of you, I’m sorry…” He pauses, realizing something. “Hold on, you just… you just stayed there? After I fell asleep?”

Sherlock gives him an eyebrow. “If I had moved, I would have woken you up,” he answers. “It really isn’t that complicated.”

“Why do you care?” John stares at him, and at first Sherlock wonders if he’s angry… but in the end, Sherlock cans see that he’s just confused. He walks over to the table, picks up a paper, looks at it, and puts it back down. “What does it matter to you if I wake up?”

Sherlock opens his mouth to speak, but closes it. He thinks back to last night (or, earlier that morning, he supposes) when John’s breathing first slowed and his body went limp. Sherlock had studied him for a while, before the thought occurred to him that John looked so… _comfortable._ The smaller man was tucked alongside him as if he’d spent every night of his life there; his face was turned into Sherlock’s shoulder, breathing gently onto his neck, his wings were caught between John’s back and Sherlock’s chest, and his hand rested somewhere in Sherlock’s lap. Something had started to seep into Sherlock’s thin bones, starting at a point somewhere in the middle of his ribcage – his brain started to spin with wonder.

The simple fact that John Watson could sit next to him and be this _close_ to him and be comfortable enough to fall asleep was one of the most beautiful and confusing facts that Sherlock’s brain had ever mulled over.

He’d watched John’s chest rise and fall, and felt a wave of satisfaction at his surprisingly successful endeavor – the whole point of the exercise had been to get John to relax, after all, and he’d done far better than that. The need to make sure that John slept came from a pit in the deepest recesses of his brain that seemed to keep making more of a fuss with each passing day: it was the part of his mind that was always keeping a tab on John’s wellbeing, the part that forced Sherlock’s hand to untie his scarf and hand it to John when he forgot his jacket, the part that made Sherlock call ahead to a restaurant and make a reservation so he knew John would have something to eat later, the part that sent Sherlock running off on cases by himself because he knew that they would be dangerous, because it was that same part of his mind that could not begin to fathom the thought of John being hurt.

It was this part of his brain that had kept him from moving all through the night, until he too fell asleep – and it was this part of his brain that was sending waves of cold through his chest, now aching with its lack of a John.

He clears his throat. “This case isn’t finished,” he replies. He looks away, towards the window. “I’m going to need your help, and I can’t have you falling over with lack of sleep later on.”

When he glances back, John is staring straight at him – the two make eye contact. For one terrible moment, it seems to Sherlock that his flatmate knows exactly why he hadn’t moved all those hours before, even when Sherlock himself isn’t really sure – but the moment passes, and John walks off to the kitchen.

Sherlock watches him go, watches the way he walks – bolt upright, still retaining the form he learned in the military, wings held at a neutral upward position, steps slow and sleepy – while his brain starts rambling off hundreds of observations, which he isn’t really paying attention to. _Hasn’t phoned Sarah, wondering if he should but not entirely sure. Doesn’t like the hideous green jumper his sister sent him, but planning on wearing it anyway. Going to have a drink with some friends from the surgery later today. Wondering if he should feign sickness and beg out._

_Very well rested. Going to try to get me to eat something._

Sighing, Sherlock stands, creaking and stretching himself out, and makes his way over to the kitchen.

“I don’t eat while I’m on a case,” he says, coming up to stand behind John at the microwave.

John turns and gives him the most withering glare he’s ever experienced.

Sherlock sighs. “Is it from that Italian place we went to two days ago?”

“Yes.” John spoons something into a bowl. “It’s your ravioli. You seemed to like it.”

Sherlock stares at John from where he leans against the countertop. His eyes narrow, as if he can’t quite get the man in focus. John doesn’t seem to notice, and goes about stirring up the noodles and putting them in the microwave, and Sherlock’s brain races.

“Why do you care so much?” he asks, before he can stop himself. He doesn’t know why he asked it – he already knew the answer, and the answer is poking him from the inside, sharp points sticking this way and that because this knowledge just doesn’t fit right inside him.

John stops, and pauses for some time before turning to his flatmate. His face is soft and gentle but there’s still something in it that’s pained and tired.

“Because you’re my friend,” he says, and he turns back to the microwave. “It’s pretty simple, Sherlock. I’m sure your super-brain or whatever could have figured that out.”

Sherlock breathes in the scent of leftover marinara sauce; it does smell delicious. _Doesn’t like the green jumper,_ his brain repeats. _The green jumper. Green jumper._

A spark ignites his mind.

He grabs the food from John’s hands and starts striding towards the couch, shoveling down huge bites of pasta as he walks. He sits down on the couch and grabs John’s laptop with one hand, hefting another fork-load to his mouth with the other.

“Sherlock, what are you doing?” John follows him, his brow creased and his mouth hanging open. When Sherlock doesn’t answer, he moves closer. “No, seriously, _what_ are you doing?”

“I’m _eating,_ ” Sherlock hisses, waving the fork about his head. “Happy?”

John crosses his arms. “What are you _really_ doing?”

Sherlock bites down on the last ravioli, chews, and swallows. “Looking up the chemical content and smudge rate of different types of lipstick,” he answers.

After a moment, John goes off to the kitchen to microwave his own leftovers. By the time he gets back, Sherlock has seven tabs open and his mind is racing.

John sits down in his chair opposite him and takes a bite. “So? Got anything yet?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says. “Lime Crime Opaque Lipstick, color name ‘Serpentina.’ Dark emerald green color, only available seasonally. Sells for about fifteen pounds.”

“Okay, and…?”

“ _Green_ lipstick, John,” Sherlock emphasizes. He shuts the computer and runs to the door – he begins putting on his coat. “ _Green_.”

John says nothing.

Sherlock sighs. “Didn’t you _notice_ the green stains on Linda Mason’s blouse?”

“Well…” John thinks back. “Um, yeah, I guess I did. But couldn’t that just be a normal stain?”

“Oh for god’s sake.” Sherlock’s tying his scarf up now. “She _never_ wears makeup, couldn’t you tell by her skin? She doesn’t use anything on her face, not even basic foundation.”

“Okay…” Sherlock watches John reach for his own coat. “Um… couldn’t it have been Esme Hamilton instead?”

“What woman over the age of forty wears dark green lipstick?” Sherlock scoffs. “I know what you’re thinking, it wasn’t one of the kids at the daycare, either. The stain on the shirt was left there by a mouth, an adult-sized mouth. Chapped lips.”

Sherlock’s mind trails off as he watches John’s wings disappear underneath that thin nylon prison. For a moment, just a moment, he feels a wave of sadness wash over him with the gentleness of John’s breathing only hours before – he pushes it away, not entirely successfully.

“So where are we going?” John asks, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“Back to the morgue, then to the crime scene,” Sherlock answers.

“And… after that?” John persists.

Sherlock glances at him, wondering why he wishes John wasn’t wearing his contacts when he looked at him like that, why the admiring gaze his flatmate sometimes sent his way would seem so much better if it wasn’t covered up by two filthy lies. “After that,” he says, wondering why his heart is beating faster, “who knows?”

He walks out the door, and John doesn’t say a word.


	9. Stains

It’s small. The sort of thing that John’s default setting as a normal person would completely ignore, and therefore the sort of thing that Sherlock would pull a person’s life story from. _There seem to be too many of those types of things_ , John thinks, not entirely bitterly but not too happily, either.

It’s very green.

“Looks sort of like a grass stain, except…” John stares at the mark, trying to figure it out. “It’s… too dark. And a bit smudgier.”

“Lipstick,” Sherlock reminds him. He leans over to get a better look, making good use of his magnifying glass. “Well, at least we know one thing.”

John takes a moment to breathe out, breathe in. “And what’s that?” he asks.

Sherlock looks at him and smirks that smirk of his. “Linda Mason had an unwelcome admirer,” he answers.

John just sighs and shakes his head. “Okay, and, how do we know that?” he asks, collecting himself and having a better look.

“The stain isn’t just from lipstick,” Sherlock explains. His voice is already getting quicker, going into the bullet train of a tone that he uses to shoot off deductions. “Traces of lip liner, which was applied all over the lips as opposed to just the edges. Only women who actually know what they’re doing apply lip pencils all over as a base under their lipstick – this says that whoever left this mark wore and applied makeup regularly. The lip liner’s green, a very similar shade to the lipstick – the lip pencil was bought specifically to match this seasonal shade of lipstick, but it’s not the same brand. This woman didn’t just _wear_ makeup, she took it very seriously.

“Traces of skin from where her lips were peeling. There are smudges of concealer and foundation on other parts of the shirt; obviously a woman who was meticulous about her face and skin. Not the type of woman to let her lips get chapped. The lipstick had been applied after the lips were already chapped, and any woman who takes her makeup seriously would be wary of layering lip products on peeling skin, so she must have not have been planning on wearing the lipstick at first. It was a last second decision, possibly when she was already nearing her destination.”

“How come you know so much about makeup?” John asks, more suspicious than curious.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Makeup can leave valuable marks, as I am currently demonstrating,” he snaps. “Besides, finding humor in the enforcing of gender stereotypes is horribly tiring.”

Despite Sherlock’s irritated glare, or possibly because of it, John starts to giggle. “Sorry,” he manages, upon receiving an even darker look. “Go on, keep… deducing.”

Immediately, Sherlock turns back to the corpse. “This shirt,” he begins. John can see his brain ticking. “Button up, stiff collar – doesn’t seem to be Mason’s usual style, judging by the tan lines around her neck. Very nice brand. Not _too_ expensive, but a bit of a splurge for someone who makes a living off of children’s books.” He looks closer. “It’s about a year old. Been ironed and pressed twice since then – so not too often. But that’s not because she’s lazy or can’t afford it – the wrinkles are neat, she took very good care of this shirt. Probably the nicest shirt she owned. No, she’s only had it pressed twice because she’s only worn it twice.”

He lifts up the collar, peers underneath. “This was the only presentable shirt she owned – she kept it for formal events and when she wanted to look professional, like when she went to meet with a publisher, as she was scheduled to do the day she died. Most likely going to propose a new book idea. So she must have had this shirt on the day she was sexually assaulted.”

John shakes his head, trying to clear it out. “Wait, hold on. How can you know she was assaulted? How do you know she didn’t just… have a date with someone? Wait, how do you even know this was left by something sexual?”

Sherlock gives him The Look, the how-can-you-be-such-an-idiot look, and John ignores it. He stares at the corpse, trying to turn his head sideways or cross his eyes or something, trying to see what Sherlock sees. All he sees is a shirt with a stain on it.

“There are still wrinkles around the collar where someone was grabbing her,” Sherlock explains, pointing. “One of the buttons is coming off – again, Mason took very good care of this shirt, so it must have been someone else trying to rip it off her. The fabric is stretched here and here, so she tried to pull away, but her attacker was too strong. The makeup is smeared over her shoulder in such a way that could only have been from someone trying to get at her face – a woman, by the lip marking, shorter than Mason but taller than you.”

“Watch it,” John warns.

“Now really isn’t the time to be self-conscious about your height, John.”

John bristles. “Well, it’s not like you make it any easier for me!”

Sherlock jerks back, affronted. “What do _I_ do?”

“You’re a bloody giant,” John mutters, staring daggers up at him. “Just… sod it, never mind. You’re right, now’s not the time.”

“If you really wanted to be taller than me,” Sherlock snaps, “you know one very simple way to go about it.”

John’s throat goes dry. He stares up at his friend, who seems to be perfectly aware of what he’s just said and not about to say anything else on the matter. John’s brain isn’t working too properly, and he’s starting to wonder whose fault that is.

His wings itch terribly underneath his jacket.

After too long of a moment, he looks away. “You know I can’t do that,” he says, quietly.

Another pause. “Can’t,” Sherlock repeats, “or won’t?”

It’s a stab through his temple. “ _Can’t_ ,” he answers firmly. Things are flashing through his sub-cranium, now – goddamn it. Bullets. Falling. Swiss Army Knife clattering to the floor, covered in his blood, god _damn it._ Damn you, Sherlock Holmes. “Can’t.”

Sherlock looks like he’s studying the shirt, but John knows better. It’s a long while before he speaks again. “You could,” he says, finally. John closes his eyes. “ _Can_. You… you can. I know so.”

The silence is growing awkward again, although not so much _awkward_ as the presence of something that could either destroy or recreate the both of them, so John clears his throat. “Deductions,” he coughs.

A moment, and Sherlock blinks. “Of course. Yes.” Shaken, he turns back to the body and the stain. “This shirt’s been washed three times since the stain was created, but it hasn’t been worn since – further proof that the sexual advances were unwelcome. After this woman attacked her, she wanted rid of this shirt, since it held the evidence, a reminder, of her assault. However, she couldn’t afford to throw it away, so she first tried to wash the stain out. She used a powerful stain remover but no bleach, probably from fear that she’d ruin the material. Still, no matter how hard she tried, the stain wouldn’t come out, so she threw it to the bottom of her closet, where it’s been sitting for… a month and a half.”

“Amazing,” John says, partly out of awe and partly out of habit. Sherlock tries to hide the glimmer of pride in his eyes, but John’s spent too many years in military training to miss it.

“She only brought the shirt out yesterday, for her meeting,” Sherlock continues. “That’s evident in her hair – meticulously done, although the texture says that she doesn’t take good care of her hair most of the time, so it must have been a really special occasion. She wakes up, gets herself cleaned up, even applies the tiniest bit of tinted chapstick, borrowed from Esme, and when faced with the prospect of getting dressed nicely, she’s forced to dig through her closet and put on this shirt.”

He pauses, thinking. John blinks. “So… what’s that got to do with her death?” he asks.

“She was wearing a cardigan,” Sherlock answers. He picks up said cardigan, which he’d peeled off and set on the counter in order to get a better look at the shirt underneath. “It’s not a nice or expensive cardigan, so the only reason she could possibly be wearing it would be to cover up the green lipstick stain.”

John realizes something, and what Sherlock’s just said doesn’t fit right. “But…” he begins, hesitantly – “why would she use this cardigan to cover up a stain, when the cardigan’s–”

“When the cardigan’s got stains of its own?” Sherlock finishes, smiling the smirk again. He holds up the thin fabric, so John can see the collage of food spills and grass stains, all faded and washed out, but still clearly _there_. It’s not the messiest item of clothing he’s ever seen, but it’s not exactly one he’d wear if he was trying to come off as professional. “Why would she cover up a stained shirt with an even more intensely stained cardigan?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Because she wasn’t hiding the stain from her publisher,” Sherlock answers. There’s a gleam in his eye – _this is the thing_ , John thinks. _The really big thing, that he’s been leading up to._ Sherlock tosses the cardigan away. “She was hiding the stain from Esme.”

“What?” John wrinkles his brow.

“It’s all so _obvious_ , John!” Sherlock exclaims, starting to walk out the door. John follows. “Whomever attacked Linda a month or so ago, Linda doesn’t want Esme to know about it. That’s one of the reasons she tried so hard to get rid of the stain in the first place. She’s been hiding the stain, and the shirt, from Esme all this time because she _knew_ Esme would recognize it, due to it’s very unusual _green_ color.”

John purses his lips as he walks alongside his friend. “So Esme would have been able to tell who sexually assaulted her flatmate by the color of the lipstick she’d been wearing?”

“It’s not a very common shade, is it?”

“So it was probably someone who wears green lipstick a lot.”

“Either that, or just eccentric shades in general, yes.”

“And…” _For god’s sake, Sherlock, you really don’t have to walk that fast. Your legs are long enough already._ “For some reason, Linda really, really didn’t want Esme to know this had happened?”

“Oh, _now_ you’re catching on. Is a celebration in order?”

“Good to know you’re your usual cheery self,” John mutters. They turn the corner, and almost run into Molly.

“Oh!” she half-squeals, as if she’s done something terrible, like run over a kitten with an SUV. “Hi.”

“Hello, Molly,” John says with a smile. Sherlock, predictably, says nothing.

Molly gestures awkwardly at the direction they just came from. “Did you… were you, just… looking at those two? The… weird ones?”

John nods. “Sherlock’s figured something out, so we’re going to the crime scene.”

Sherlock stands, waiting impatiently. John can tell that it’s taking every smidgen of his self-control not to simply bolt down the hallway, leaving John behind.

“Um, about… sorry, just…” Molly motions toward the room they came from, where the two cadavers lie. “Are they… sorry, are they _supposed_ to have wings?”

“Er.” John stands up straighter (closer, make them invisible, please.) “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

Molly looks unsure, but she nods.

The words “Well, bye,” are barely detached from John’s lips before Sherlock’s off down the hallway again. John follows, having to take huge almost-leaping steps in order to keep up, and it feels slightly and terribly like flying.

•••

“Don’t know how you manage it,” Lestrade comments as he’s searching through some files on his desktop. “Me, I’d have run off by now, if he treated me the way he treats you.”

John shrugs, because he’s not sure what to say to that. “He can be a right git a lot of the time,” he agrees. “But… I don’t really mind it, I guess. I mean, some things, like when he leaves ungodly body parts in the dishes, yeah, that does piss me off.” Lestrade chuckles. “But he’s my friend – my best friend, probably – when the day’s over. I put up with him.”

“Even when he has you run all over London?” Lestrade asks, raising an eyebrow.

John sighs. “Yeah, he does do that, doesn’t he?” For god’s sake, he should be at the crime scene right now – but Sherlock just had to bloody change his mind, run off to the dead women’s flat without him, leave him to do all the gathering-information type work, as per usual. “He sent me here to get your information on Hamilton and Mason. Have you found out anything?”

Lestrade nods. “I’ve got the names of all their closest living relatives. Also, the publishing company Mason had a contract with, and the website for the daycare they ran. It’s all here.” He hands over a freshly-printed sheet, which John looks over, folds, and pockets. Lestrade purses his lips, studying the dust on his desk a little too intently. He pauses, the way people do when there’s something on their mind that’s practically falling over the tip of their tongue in its eagerness to escape, but they’re not entirely sure whether or not they should get it out. He waits.

“You know…” he says, slowly. “It’s all been… a bit of a shock, really. I mean, in reality it’s been like any other case we’ve had to call Sherlock in for. But, I just… can’t… really wrap my head around…”

 _Oh_ , John thinks. _That._

“There was this one bloke,” John says. He shifts in his seat. “In Afghanistan. Good man, good soldier. He… he was the sort of man that you might not want to talk to at first, but once you got to know him and he got to trusting you, he’d always stick by you, ‘til the end.”

Lestrade peers at him from underneath creased eyebrows. “And he… he was one of them?” he asks.

At this point, John is becoming very, very good at not wincing. “He was a fairy, yeah.” He swallows. “Good friend of mine. He’d really screwed up his life, he was trying to make things right, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Swallow, again. “But people were afraid of him. Just because of what he was, what he had sticking out of his back. They thought he was dangerous, so they decided to kill him. They shot him, he almost died. I… watched it all happen.”

Lestrade says nothing.

“I realized, then,” John continues. “They’re just like us, you know. They’ve got the same minds, same hearts. They fall in love the same way and hate the same way and die the same way. The only reason they’re any different is because humans say that they are.”

This silence is different – it’s the bad, awkward kind. The uncomfortable kind, the kind that makes your skin not only crawl but writhe.

“I…” Lestrade begins, but falters. “God, John, I mean… your friend being shot and all, that’s… Jesus, that’s a bit extreme. But how can you really know for sure that they’re not different? Not dangerous?” He sighs. “Can you _really_ be sure that they’re just like us?”

In the moments that follow, John wonders if it might have been easier if that bullet really had ended him. He pushes the thought away hopes that he’s not going to cry. God, that would really be awful. No. He’s not going to cry. Good.

Lestrade clears his throat. John doesn’t move.

“We’ve… sent someone, to deal with the kids,” he says, hesitantly.

John looks up. “What kids?”

The detective inspector shifts uncomfortably. “Mason’s kids,” he explains. “Two girls, twins, age eight. Off in the country, remember? Visiting an uncle.”

John nods. He remembers.

“We had to send someone down to tell them,” he continues. “ _God,_ I hate this part. This whole fucking part, they never tell you about it when you join the Yard. We had to send someone up to Wales to tell two bloody kids that their mum’s just been murdered, they’ve just become orphans.”

John looks at the list again, and decides not to say anything.

Lestrade sighs, rubbing his temple. “Sorry, didn’t mean to… go off, there,” he says. When he looks up, his eyes are tired. “You know… it’s just that you’re… you’re a good man, you know. I thought you might understand.”

“I do,” John says, nodding. “Yeah, I do understand.”

Lestrade nods. “I guess you’d just have to be a really spectacular bloke in order to last this long with Sherlock Holmes.”

“I do my best,” he answers, smiling softly. “But I know… I know how you feel. I know what you’re going through. I was in the army, remember.”

“Yeah.”

“Had friends die right in front of me.”

Lestrade nods again. “How’d you deal with it all?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” John answers, truthfully. “I’m not sure I _did_ deal with it.”

After a moment, Lestrade turns back to the computer screen. “Anyway. How’s the case getting along?”

“Well, Sherlock’s looking for a woman who sexually assaulted Mason a month or so ago. He thinks it’s important, so it probably is. The woman wore green lipstick, and Mason didn’t want Hamilton to know about it.”

Lestrade gapes a little. “And… how’d he get all that?”

“From a stain,” John answers, chuckling inwardly. Everything about today is so Sherlock, all of this is so classic Sherlock, _his_ Sherlock. “On a shirt.”

“Blimey,” Lestrade breathes out. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s even human.”

“Trust me, he is,” John answers. “I’ve checked.”

Lestrade chuckles, oblivious to the fact that John is being completely serious. “John, I know it’s not really the time, what with two women dead and all,” he says, “but I’d like to grab a pint with you sometime. You know, as friends, for once.”

Surprised, John grins. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Don’t really get out with mates too much,” Lestrade says with a sigh.

“Neither do I. I’d like to more often, though.”

“Yeah.” Lestrade turns back to him, and it’s almost as though he’s seeing him for the first time. “You know,” he begins, “I’m glad he’s got you.”

Again, John says nothing. He nods, but it’s such a small movement that Lestrade misses it completely.

“It’s hard to believe, but he really has changed, a little,” the detective inspector continues. He looks at John sideways. “Since you came around. He’s gotten… better. I don’t know how to put it, but it’s really sort of like you’ve made him more of a real person.”

John nods. “He sort of did the same for me.”

Lestrade says nothing for a while. After a sufficient amount of silent seconds have passed, he jerks out of whatever state he was in. “You should probably go find him,” he says. He stands up and begins walking towards the door; John follows. “And call me up the next time you’ve got an hour, will you? I know a nice bar ‘round the corner.”

John nods gratefully. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

“Your girlfriend won’t mind?” Lestrade chuckles. John rolls his eyes – he knows full well that his ill luck with women has become an inside joke with the Yard.

“I’m single, right now, actually,” he answers, but something’s not fitting right in his mind.

 _Your girlfriend won’t mind?_ The phrase repeats in his brain, demanding his attention. _Girlfriend won’t mind? Girlfriend?_

“Girlfriend,” he whispers.

Lestrade raises an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

John pushes him aside, stepping back into Lestrade’s office. “Sorry, Greg, I can’t go just yet.” Lestrade takes his seat across the desk, and waits. John’s heart is beating with the anticipation and the aftermath of an epiphany.

“There’s one thing I need you to look into,” he says. He smiles, despite himself.

•••

Sherlock guesses which cab John is in before said cab makes it halfway down the block. No, not ‘guesses’ – he never guesses. He deduces which cab contains John Watson, and he’s right.

When John walks forward, there’s a spring in his step. His face isn’t smiling at first, but it blossoms into that lovely grin as soon as he lays eyes on Sherlock’s coat-clad figure. Sherlock raises an eyebrow. _What’s got you so happy, John Watson?_

“Find out anything?” John asks, crossing his arms against the cold.

Sherlock takes a moment to scowl discreetly at John’s flimsy jacket (it’s almost become a tradition by now) before answering. “Come upstairs, let me show you.”

John nods, and within a minute they’re standing in the flat again. Sherlock makes his way to Hamilton’s bedroom, where the bodies had been found. He sees John stiffen out of the corner of his eye – no doubt remembering the confrontation between himself and Sally Donovan one day prior.

“Bed sheets,” he says, gesturing with a gloved hand. “I found more stains, almost identical to the one on Mason’s shirt. Same brand of lipstick, not always the same color, always with matching lip-liner. Definitely left by the same person.”

“Okay, so what’s different?” John looks closely, and does indeed see stains. Some are the same green, but some are varying shades of red, others are purple, and one seems to be yellow. “You wouldn’t be this excited if there wasn’t something different.”

Sherlock’s grinning an almost grin, one he knows John’s used to seeing by now. “Two things,” he says. “Firstly, some of the stains are older than others. Whoever left these stains has been here multiple times, covering a wide time span.”

“Okay… what’s the second?”

“These sheets have been washed many times, and Hamilton’s tried to get the stains off with remover,” Sherlock continues. “But the newer ones have never had stain remover applied. She stopped trying to get rid of them after a while, probably because she realized that they weren’t going to come out no matter how hard she tried.”

John looks lost, which is what Sherlock expected. “So… what’s that mean?”

“It _means_ ,” Sherlock grins, “that while Mason was sexually assaulted, Hamilton welcomed the same person’s advances, multiple times. She didn’t care about getting rid of the stains because they had no emotion or bad memories attached to them.”

John nods. “Did you find anything else?”

In answer, Sherlock walks out of the room. When he passes the living room, he gestures to one of the couches.

“More stains there,” he tosses out over his shoulder. John takes a look, and keeps following until Sherlock reaches the bathroom.

“Look here,” he says, pointing to the dustbin. He watches as John looks, watches the bend of his back and the creasing of his brow. “Do you see it?”

John pauses. “Is that a–”

“Tube of lipstick,” Sherlock says triumphantly. “The very same that left that stain.”

John’s eyebrows go up. “So what’s that mean?”

Sherlock picks up the tube and pulls off the cap. The bullet’s been completely worn down – this lipstick has been used very frequently. Most of the tip is covered in a layer of strokes; applied with brush, then. However, the very surface is irregular and full of bumps, and just the tiniest flakes of skin.

“Last applied on chapped lips,” he says, grinning. “Haphazardly, without a brush – this woman wasn’t prepared, she probably applied it as a last minute decision.” John says nothing, but seems to have something on the tip of his tongue. Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “Okay, so, what did you get from Lestrade?”

“Nothing important,” John says. A sly, innocent grin.

Sherlock’s eyes narrow.

“What?” he asks.

To his irritation, John only grins again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Teasing him, then.

Sherlock sighs. There really isn’t time for this. “ _What_ did you get from Lestrade?” he repeats.

“Nothing at all,” John answers, looking off into the distance and folding his hands behind his back.

Sherlock sighs again.

“Except I do know who the woman is,” John adds, after a moment.

Sherlock jerks his head back. “What?” He stares at John’s placidly smug face. “Who?”

John’s grin only grows. “Lucy Heralds, age thirty-three. Photographer and professional make-up artist. Lives in Hackney.”

For once, Sherlock can do nothing but stare. “ _How_ do you know that?”

“I bloody figured it out, you git,” John grins. “You’re not the only one who can _deduce_ things, you know.”

Sherlock’s still gaping, just a little. “Who exactly is Lucy Heralds?” he asks.

John grins even wider (Sherlock didn’t know he could do that.) “Esme Hamilton’s ex-girlfriend,” he answers, waiting for the words to sink into Sherlock’s brain.

Finally, it’s that moment of everything becoming crystal clear in one instant. This final piece that John’s contributed is already being fitted into a million slots in his brain, voids that have been eagerly awaiting something solid for far too long. To say that his mind is racing would be a hideous understatement – Sherlock’s brain is defying the laws of physics, breaking the light barrier, gaining infinite mass and infinite speed/inertia all at once.

“When did Hamilton break up with Heralds?” John asks, derailing his train of thought.

Sherlock glances around the flat and sees what he needs to see. “Around two months ago,” he answers.

“And… Mason was attacked a month and a half ago?” John continues. “So… Heralds gets dumped, then half a month later she tries to rape her ex’s flatmate?”

Sherlock nods. He starts pacing in circles around the room, nearly spinning with his hands open as if he’s trying to catch something in the air. He stares at some point near the ceiling. “You said it yourself, John,” he mutters. He’s thinking. “Mason and Hamilton were in love, although they weren’t officially dating. Most probably… Hamilton broke up with Lucy Heralds to be with Linda Mason.”

“So Lucy’s girlfriend dumped her for another woman?” John laughs. “That’s what this is all about? Seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it?”

“Heralds would have wanted to get back at Hamilton somehow,” Sherlock goes on. He puts his fingers together underneath his chin – John calls it his “posh thinking pose,” or something like that. “But… no, if she wanted to get revenge on Hamilton, why would she attack _Mason_?”

John stares at him with a tired, tired face – the same face he’s been seeing his whole life from so many people, the face that made him decide to look up the word “sociopath” in the first place. It’s his eternal punishment for whenever he’s said something cold and emotionless and very _not human_ , and it never had any effect until John started using it on him. When John’s features contort into that hideously resigned mask of disappointment, it makes Sherlock wish that he could be swallowed by his own breath and shrivel into nothingness.

“Oh, god, I dunno,” John scoffs, dry and full of sarcasm. “Maybe she _cared_ about her or something.” He looks down and sighs. “Ridiculous, right? That you might try to get revenge at someone by hurting the person they love. God, that’s stupid.”

Sherlock swallows. Something’s tugging downward at the base of his throat, and he doesn’t know why.

“Fine,” he snaps, but without much enthusiasm – he knows that John’ll be able to tell that he understands, which he really does. “But that can’t be all of it. It wasn’t just anger, John, it was _jealousy._ Jealousy of Linda Mason, Hamilton’s real friend, the person she really loves, so much more so than Heralds. She wouldn’t just want Hamilton to hurt, she’d want her to stop loving Linda Mason, the woman who took her place.”

“Okay, so…” John looks normal again, and Sherlock can’t help feeling relieved.

“So, she comes over a week or so after the breakup,” Sherlock explains. The pieces have already fallen into place in his head, but John knows full well that it makes everything that much clearer to say it all out loud. “She tries to have sex, or something of that sort, with Mason, and tries to make it look like Mason was cheating on Hamilton.”

To Sherlock’s bemusement, John laughs. “Oh my god,” he giggles (a giggle shouldn’t sound that nice, it really shouldn’t.) “That’s… that’s bloody ridiculous, and it’s bloody genius.”

Sherlock grins. “She walked here through the cold, and waited outside until she knew Hamilton was just about to come home. Hence, the chapped lips. A few minutes before, she walked inside and found Mason, who suspected nothing and welcomed her in. She must have found out that Hamilton wouldn’t be coming home that night, so she had to think fast. She had to do something that would leave a lasting mark, something Hamilton would recognize – so she went to the bathroom and put on a quick coat of her trademark lipstick.”

“Amazing.”

“Mason probably kicked her out before Hamilton got home, so she had time to wash the marks off her face and change clothes. _That’s_ why she hid the shirt and the stain for so long, because she knew that Hamilton would recognize the marks.”

“Okay…” John looks towards the bedroom, where they died. “So she took the shirt out and tried to cover it up with a cardigan. Later that day, they were murdered. So… how’s this all connect? You don’t think _Heralds_ murdered them, do you?”

“If Heralds murdered them, they might actually look like they had been _murdered_ , don’t you think?” Sherlock asked exasperatedly. “Still, I don’t think it would hurt to give her a call, don’t you think?”

“I think that’s a smashing idea,” John says, smirking, and walks out the door ahead of him.

Sherlock takes a moment to stare at his retreating back, where he knows his wings are painfully bound beneath layers of knits and nylon. Without thinking, he rushes forward until they’re walking side by side and drapes his arm over John’s shoulder.

John jerks his head up. “Sherlock, what are you–”

“Quiet, I’m thinking,” Sherlock snaps, although in reality his brain is stagnating. Not necessarily in a bad way, however.

Discreetly, he slips a hand lower until his fingertips are brushing the tiny bumps in the fabric that mark the bases of John’s wings. He feels John jerk a little at the slight contact, but it only lasts a moment. They keep walking, until they’re standing still, waiting for the doors of the rickety lift to open. Comfortable.

“And I wonder why people think we’re a couple,” John smirks.

Sherlock only smiles, and says nothing.


	10. Yet Another Coat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the super long hiatus, everyone! In order to make up for it, I'm going to be posting a whole bunch of chapters at once. Thanks for being patient!

John pulls his jacket close to him against the cold. They’ve just walked out of a tube station, and now they’re strolling down the long ramp toward the dirty Hackney streets.

“Address?” Sherlock prompts.

“Right here.” John reaches into his pocket and pulls out the scrap of paper Lestrade gave him. “Are you sure you can read it?”

Sherlock scoffs. “John, please. I am more than capable of deciphering your handwriting.”

“Right. Sorry.” It gets a little hard to think when it’s this cold and all you have to guard you against the cold is what basically amounts to a glorified plastic wrap. “It’s just, I was writing a bit fast. Excited and all that.”

Sherlock nods. They turn the corner and pass some generic internationally available restaurants – Subway, McDonalds – and the ever-present and overpriced Pret A Manger. John looks around at the gum-splattered sidewalks with a very strong sense of “almost”. Before Sherlock, he’d been looking at a tiny flat in Hackney, not far from here. It wasn’t too bad, but it was all he could afford. It almost physically hurts to think of living anywhere but 221B these days; nowhere else has ever had such a strong feeling of home.

They turn another corner.

It’s a while before John’s aware of Sherlock clearing his throat. He turns his head, but Sherlock’s already looking away from him.

“That was… good, by the way,” he says quietly. He clears his throat again and refuses to look John in the eye. “Your… deductions. Very impressive.”

John stops walking altogether, and stares. After another step, Sherlock realizes that John’s stopped, so he stops as well, and turns.

“What?” he asks.

“I…” John begins, but falters. “I… just supposed, I mean, I thought you’d be sort of upset that I figured it out before you did.”

Sherlock stands up straighter. “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous,” he says, creasing his eyebrows defensively. “It’s my own habits rubbing off on you, no doubt, so it seems perfectly fair to conclude that you learned it all from me. I’m not completely lacking in credit.”

John shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re an arse,” he comments, walking forward again. Sherlock walks beside him – John can feel him smiling.

Without thinking, he reaches out a hand and takes Sherlock’s gloved one in his fingers. He gives it a squeeze.

_Thank you_ , he thinks.

A moment passes, and Sherlock lets his thumb slide over John’s palm, a smooth brush of soft leather.

_You’re welcome._

Both let go of the other’s hand, and they walk in silence until they reach Lucy Heralds’ flat, only two blocks away.

•••

After a few minutes of standing in silence, they ring up the flat just above Heralds’.

A middle-aged man answers. “Tyler Sommer. Yes?”

“Hi,” Sherlock says, his face transforming into a silly smile. John laughs silently at the sight – he already used this tactic, back during their secondcase together _._  “Erm, I’m looking for Lucy, but I can’t seem to–”

“Are you with the police?” Mr Sommer demands.

Sherlock stops, unsure. John answers for him. “Yes, we are.”

There’s a pause from the other end. “Third floor,” the voice says, and there’s a buzzing as the lock clicks open.

•••

“How long has it been?” Sherlock strides around the flat, taking in every detail.

Mr Sommer is short, shorter than John, and much rounder. Hasn’t shaved in days, possibly hasn’t bathed in just as long. Still, he’s got a very fatherly air about him, which may explain why he’s still standing in the corner, wringing his hands. “About a week since I last saw her,” he says, his voice beginning to tremble. “Haven’t heard from anyone about her since.”

Sherlock’s pinprick eyes dart back and forth. “She didn’t say anything before she disappeared? She wasn’t going anywhere?”

Wringing, back and forth. “She left like she usually does, for work. She’s got this project going on, at a big theater in town. The Uptown Theater, she said it was called. Putting on a big show or something. You know how she was with cosmetics, she was doing the makeup. Who are you two, again?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer, so John steps forward and holds out his hand; Mr. Sommer takes it. “Dr. John Watson,” he says, and then gestures towards the tall figure in the background. “And this is Sherlock Holmes.”

Mr. Sommer nods, his eyes flicking between the two. “And you’re with the police?”

Before John can answer, Sherlock interrupts, without turning around. “Is anything missing from her flat?”

Mr Sommer shakes his head, looking more miserable by the second. “She was… such a nice girl,” he says, his lip trembling and his voice coming out half-choked. “Always so nice to me. I’m just an old man, Mr Holmes. I was lonely; she took such nice care of me. Made me dinner when I wasn’t feeling well… I’m sick, you know.”

John nods sympathetically to make up for Sherlock’s complete apathy. _One_ of them has to be the emotional one, and that responsibility always ends up on John’s shoulders. Mr Sommer starts fumbling around for a tissue, knocking over some stacks of books in the process.

“Be _careful!_ ” Sherlock snaps, looking at the old man as if he’s lost his mind.

“Sorry, sorry…” Mr Sommer gives up on the tissues, and just snorts it all up instead. “It’s just been so much of a shock, you know. Can you bring her back, Mr Holmes? Please, can you make sure she’s safe?”

After a moment, Sherlock decides to say nothing. He takes out his phone and starts doing whatever it is he does when he’s on the bloody thing.

John turns to Mr Sommer and gives him his most sympathetic smile. “We’ll do our best,” he assures him. The man nods tearfully.

“She was a good tenant,” he sniffs. “Never left too much of a mess, made too much noise…”

“Well!” Sherlock shouts, so suddenly that John practically jumps. “We’ve got everything we needed here. Come along, John.”

Before John can say anything, Sherlock’s already out the door.

John shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around. “Alright, erm, if you hear anything from her, anything at all,” he tells Mr Sommer, “just let us know.”

“Alright,” says Mr Sommer, and John walks away to go catch his flatmate, now sauntering down the stairs.

•••

“What did you see?”

They’re walking down the street at a relaxed but still speedy pace. John’s hands are clenching and unclenching in his pocket, his teeth bared against the chilly wind. Sherlock’s collar is up, which gives John a clue as to what’s going on in his mind.

Sherlock smiles. “I didn’t see anything. I heard.”

“Okay, what?”

In answer, he pulls out his phone. “Uptown Theater,” he says. “Went out of business a few years ago, but it was sold to a new owner. Little place, not too successful. Herald’s said that she was doing a large scale production there, but ever since the place changed ownership, they’ve only done very small, almost impromptu concerts.”

“What? So she lied?”

“Possibly.” Sherlock flips through the screen of his mobile, and shows it to John. “There are numerous reviews of different shows they’ve done. However, the earliest a show’s ever been advertised before it actually goes on is two months. Most of them are only announced a week or two before they go on. Furthermore, although people report to having been to the shows, there is nowhere on the website or any other site where you can buy tickets.”

“That…” John shivers at a particularly cold gust, and shakes it off. “That does seem strange, doesn’t it?”

“Want to go take a look?”

“Yeah.” He walks for another moment or so before deciding that now would be as good as any time to bring it up. “Erm, there was something else. About the flat.”

Sherlock peers over at him. “What was that?”

“It was…” Another shiver. “Warm. The whole room was warm, the lith kind of tingly warm feeling, but it wasn’t coming from you or that Sommer fellow. It was just sort of… floating about, random little bits of warmth everywhere.” He closes his eyes and remembers. “Like a thousand tiny lith strands just floating everywhere, detached.”

Sherlock pauses. “Is that unusual?”

“Yes. Very.”

He thinks, quietly, still walking at his usual pace. John hugs his arms around himself. “We might need to give someone a call,” Sherlock says, after a moment. “As much as it pains me to do so.”

“Who?” They turn a corner.

Sherlock doesn’t answer, but starts to compose a text on his mobile. After a few moments, he stops typing, stops walking, and stares at John like he’s just remembered something.

“What?” John says, rubbing his arms up and down.

Without another word, Sherlock shoves the phone in his trouser pockets, and starts to pull off his coat. When he’s stripped down to his crisp black jacket, he hands the mass of wool to John.

Shocked, John shakes his head. “No, Sherlock, that’s your–”

– _coat_ , he finishes in his head, because he’s too surprised to speak when Sherlock lifts up his arms and starts stuffing them into the folds of the Belstaff. By the time John’s able to form cohesive thoughts again, his arms are wrapped in too-long sleeves that dangle past his fingertips, and he’s cloaked in a familiar coat that’s long enough to be a dress and smells like everything Sherlock smells like.

Sherlock continues to walk, his scarf looking a little out of place without a huge woolen collar to nestle itself into. He doesn’t shiver, but his breath is coming out a little shaky – John can see it in the little puffs of moisture that hang in the air – and his hands take up temporary residence in his trouser pockets.

For another block, John can only stare at him. Too many things are rushing through his mind, too many questions, too many answers, all of it drowned out by this nice warmth that’s beginning to seep from his skin and remain trapped under the extra layer of expensive wool. He’s starting to get very warm, warm in the nice way, and it really isn’t the coat, although the coat’s helping.

Sherlock finishes sending the text somewhere along the next block or so.

When they reach the tube and board their train, Sherlock offers John the only available seat, but John refuses to move until Sherlock himself sits down, which he does, after a moment or two. They spend the rest of the tube ride talking about ordinary things, or at least as ordinary as things get with Sherlock Holmes, and by the time they’ve reached arguing about whether or not they should start renting 221C and turn it into a full-time laboratory complete with a private mortuary, John’s wings hurt so little that he doesn’t even know if they’re there anymore.

•••

Her phone chirps from her pocket.

She reaches her hand for it, decides against it, and ignores it.

A few moments later, it chirps again.

“Sorry, just a moment,” she says over-apologetically. She retrieves her mobile and flips it open, only to find a few texts from _him._ She stops walking altogether, and her colleagues shrug and move on without her.

_He never texts me. Why’s he texting me now?_

She reads the texts over and over again until her brain hurts, and she finally dials a number she hasn’t dialed in a while and holds the receiver to her ear.

The phone rings and rings, three, four times, five and a half times before there’s a click and the static of another part of London’s white noise being filtered through phone lines. There’s a pause.

“I prefer to text, Molly,” says Sherlock coldly.

She shivers involuntarily, and instantly blushes. _Oh god, why does he have to have a voice like that…_

“I…” She shakes her head, and holds her ground. “What’s going on? I got your texts but I didn’t… I don’t really know–”

“You said that you can see them?” He interrupts. It sounds like he’s in a tube station, from what she can hear. Sounds like he’s walking, too. She waits for him to finish his thought, but he seems to be waiting for her response.

She looks around, as if someone’s listening in – no one is, of course. “The. Um. The Golden, you mean?”

“The lith, yes.”

Softly, she nods, and then remembers that he can’t see her. “Yes. All the time.”

“We might need you in a little while.” He mumbles something – probably to John. “We’re going to the address I sent you. Can you meet us there?”

Molly swallows. It’s all too much. “I’ve got work. I’m still at work.”

Sherlock scoffs. “You get off in ten minutes, for god’s sake. I know your schedule. It shouldn’t be too far from Bart’s, just take the tube. We’ll be there.”

“I…” she swallows again, defeated. She can’t get out of this and she knows it – she’s also not entirely sure she wants to. “I’ll do my best.”

Sherlock hangs up the phone first, and when she hangs up her own mobile she feels a bit like she’s floating. It’s not the first time he’s ever asked for her help – oh, she’ll never forget that one experiment with the liquid nitrogen – but it’s the first time he’s ever _needed it._

_He needs me_ , she thinks to herself. She stares at the text with address as she walks down the hall – somewhere called the Uptown Theater. _I’m not just an extra pair of hands. I’ve got a skill that he hasn’t got and now he needs me._

Perhaps that’s why she’s smiling when she rams into someone who was leaning against the wall, causing a massive stack of papers to cascade onto the ground.

“Oh!” she squeaks, putting the phone back in her pocket. Immediately, she’s on the ground, reaching out to gather as many papers as she can. “I’m… I’m so sorry, I…”

“No no, it’s fine,” says a voice. She pauses. _I’ve heard that voice before._

She looks behind her and finds herself staring into a pair of soft brown eyes.

“Hi,” says the man, who’s also frozen.

She swallows, and picks up a few more papers. “Hi,” she mutters, feeling her face beginning to flush. _Oh my god, he’s cute. He’s really cute. Stop being so stupid, Molly._

“Sorry…” she mumbles again, scooping up the pile into her arms and handing them over. The man chuckles, embarrassed and flustered, still crouching over in his v-neck t-shirt and skinny jeans.

“No, it was my bad,” he murmurs, looking up and meeting her eyes and laughing a little again. “I’ll just… here, I’ll…”

“No, here, let me…”

When they’ve both picked up all the papers, they stand up in tandem. Molly gets a good look at him and oh god she can feel her face getting pink as she hands him her stack. He holds all the papers in lean, pale arms that remind her just the littlest bit of – _you’re such an idiot, Molly._

“Um,” she says, because she’s not good at this at all.

“Hi,” the man says again.

“Hi,” she giggles in response. She coughs awkwardly.

“I should… thanks,” he says, gesturing down the hallway.

“No problem,” Molly answers.

He opens his mouth to speak again, but a piercing yell rings down the hallway for everyone to hear:

“HOOPER!”

Molly’s heart jerks as she turns on her heels and looks down the hospital hallway. Mr. Dailey is sticking his balding head out of her room, the door ajar. She feels her palms beginning to grow sweaty.

“Get _in_ here!” he yells, and she manages to spare a glance over her shoulder while she runs down the hallway – but the man with the paper stack is already gone.

•••

John scoffs, feeling a tad too pretentious as he does so. “Not much of a theater, is it?”

“Mm, no,” Sherlock agrees, walking briskly back and forth to hid his slight shivering. John watches him. He stopped trying to give the coat back a few blocks ago after several failed attempts – bloody hell, the man can be determined when he wants to be.

John shakes his head, and looks back at the Uptown Theater. “Bit shabby,” he comments, stepping forward towards the door. Instantly, he’s hit with a wave of warmth, seeming to emanate from the cracks in the hinges; it tingles every bit of him, akin to the opening of the door to a car that’s been sitting in the sun for too long.

“My god,” he mutters, stepping back. “Sherlock, the warmth… it’s here, too. Coming from inside.”

Sherlock creases his brow, and starts to walk around the side of the building. John follows, but they’re not even around the corner before Sherlock’s phone starts ringing.

He picks it out of his pocket as if it’s a dead rat – which, knowing Sherlock, might not be too far fetched a thing to theorize about finding in his trouser pockets – and slowly presses the talk key.

“What?” he mutters.

Someone’s talking on the other end – only a moment passes before Sherlock’s face transforms. It looks as though he’s being lit from within, as if the furthest reaches of his face are waking up; that little smile starts to creep across his face, sliding up his right cheek into a perfectly sideways smirk, and it’s _that_ smirk, the one that even now is injecting little bits of adrenaline into John’s blood. The chase, whatever it is, is beginning.

“Come as quickly as you can,” Sherlock says, and he hangs up the mobile. He starts around the building again, moving more quickly than before.

“What is it? Who was that?” John runs a bit to keep up with him.

“Molly,” Sherlock says, grinning. “It’s the bodies of Hamilton and Mason.”

“So… what about them?”

Sherlock looks over his shoulder, the gleam in his eye shining brighter than the streetlights around them. “They’ve been stolen,” he grins, turning into the darkness and out of sight.

•••

Molly’s hands are shaking when she pulls on her coat and hat. It’s got pom-poms on it, a gift from her mother – not exactly the type of thing to wear to a potential crime scene, but it is really cold outside.

She swallows, and starts to walk down the hallway. All the years she’s known Sherlock, helping here and there with the bodies, and this is the first time she’s ever stepped into the fray. It’s exhilarating, and terrifying all at once.

She turns a corner, and stops just before she runs into someone. She gasps, shakes herself, and looks up. Her breath hitches.

“Oh, um, hi,” says the man.

She can feel her face growing hot. “Hello.”

“I, um, was looking for you,” he says nervously. “I… er, I’ve… seen you around? I’m new here, and…”

“Oh!” Molly remembers – she _has_ seen him around, just around the hospital and sometimes in the morgue. “Yes, I think… I think I’ve seen you.”

“Yeah.” He laughs nervously, and gestures to where he came from. “I, um… I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while, I…”

Molly’s heart quickens. “Oh, um, really?”

He nods. “Yeah, I… you always seemed so nice and I didn’t really know anyone, so…”

Molly stand stock still, fingering one of the buttons on her coat. She really should be going – whatever Sherlock’s doing, it’s most likely very important. Still, all of this… this independence, this – flirting, is this flirting? – is very nice. For god’s sake, Sherlock doesn’t own her.

“Erm, I just…” he gestures behind himself, like he should be getting somewhere. “You’ve got a cute nose, you know. I’ve wanted to say so for a while.”

Something inside her flutters. _Oh gosh._

It all comes crashing down when her phones buzzes in her pocket, and she remembers Sherlock waiting for her. She finishes buttoning up her coat.

“Thanks, I’ve… I’ve got to go,” she mumbles, pushing past him and making her way to the door.

“Wait!” he calls after her. She turns around, and oh wow, he really does look cute standing like that, against the doorframe.

“What?” she asks.

“You’re… Molly, right?”

She nods.

He nods back, and turns as if he’s going to leave. “I’m Jim, by the way,” he says. “I work in IT. See you round sometime?”

She pauses, then nods, and turns and walks out, and she can feel him staring at her as she does so – and she’s not entirely sure that’s a bad thing.


	11. Wings

The fire escape is rickety and old – John clings to the railing a bit more than he probably should have. Sherlock, on the other hand, bounds ahead, his light panther-like feet never making a sound on the rattling metal steps.

“Slow down,” John mutters, although he knows Sherlock can’t hear the words. John sighs, and tries to speed up without making too much noise.

They come to a door near the top of the building. Sherlock peers inside the small, grated window.

“Third floor, decorated hallway with curtained doors,” he says after a moment. “Most likely leads to the mezzanine. The lights are on, but I don’t see anyone.”

He turns around and moves towards where John’s standing. John steps out of the way, but Sherlock follows him – its only when the lean, pale hands are on his shoulders that John realizes that Sherlock was aiming for him in the first place.

The hands stay where they are for only a split second – but it feels longer, so much longer – before they drag down to the coat’s pockets and start fishing around. John lets the breath he’s been holding in slide past his gently clenched teeth.

After a moment of searching, Sherlock pulls out a little black leather bundle. He turns away. John feels the little wisp of air from Sherlock’s movement, cool against his cheek. He closes his eyes, and opens them with a shake of his head.

Sherlock’s standing with his back turned, preoccupied with the little bundle, which has been opened to reveal Sherlock’s rarely-used lock-pick kit. He selects a tool and inserts it into the hole in the door; within a few seconds, there’s a click, and Sherlock reaches for the knob. His head turns, until his eyes are fixed on John’s.

_Ready?_

John nods, almost imperceptibly. _Ready._

Sherlock turns the knob, opens the door, and they step inside.

•••

Molly can see the theater up ahead – it’s far too normal-looking for a crime scene. Then again, she’s never exactly been to a crime scene before, so she supposes they could really look like anything.

She pulls out her phone and pulls off her glove. _At the theater,_ she texts. _What now?_

A few seconds later: _Look around the perimeter. Tell me what you see. -SH_

She nods to herself, then looks around to see if anyone saw her do it and jumps a little when she sees a middle-aged couple across the street. _Paranoid,_ she reminds herself, and keeps walking.

A few seconds later, she stops. She stares ahead, trying to figure out if her eyes are playing tricks on her; they’re not.

She sends a text, and grips her hands behind her back as she inches forward. She’s never been this scared in her entire life, and she’s never been this excited.

•••

Sherlock pulls his phone out of his pocket. John watches his face cool into an almost grin and moves closer, trying to get a look at the text on the screen. When he sees it, he sucks in a breath.

_The building is glowing. It looks like it’s on fire._

Sherlock puts the phone away and sneaks through the curtained doorway, into the auditorium. John follows. It’s small and decrepit, but it’s been recently cleaned and it’s in usable condition. They creep down the aisle together, ducking into the shadows and looking around as they go.

Suddenly, the stage comes into view. John tries not to make a sound.

He points, looking at Sherlock, and Sherlock nods. Lying on the stage are two figures – no, two bodies – with their arms and legs and wings splayed out.

 _Well, we’ve found them,_ John thinks. _But why are they here?_

There are two more figures standing over the bodies, a man and a woman. The woman is very pale skinned and has hair dyed black – and she’s wearing dark purple lipstick.

John nudges Sherlock until he glances over. _Lucy Heralds?_ John mouths. Sherlock nods, smirking.

They watch as Lucy walks across the stage to stand over Esmé’s body, taking a moment to look down at the frozen face. She turns and says something to the man there, and thanks to the room’s spectacular acoustics and John’s sensitive ears, he can just make out the exchange.

“Are you sure this will work?” she asks.

The man grins and crosses his arms. “For the money you paid, Miss, it sure will.”

She pauses, seeming to hesitate. “It wasn’t supposed to take Esmé out. You can put her back in her body, can’t you?”

John’s jaw slackens. _What_ did he just hear?

The man nods, smiling maliciously. “Just as easy as I can do yours, Heralds. I’ve done this many times before.”

After a bit, Lucy nods, and lies down next to Hamilton’s body. She waits, make a decision, sits up again, and kisses the corpse right on the lips, leaving a dark purple stain there. She lies back down, clenching an unclenching her hands.

The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out something that looks sort of like a dog whistle. He blows into it – immediately, John can feel tendrils of warmth spreading up from the stage.

The room grows silent. They wait.

Suddenly, John sees something dark moving in the corner.

His eyes travel upwards. It’s somewhere above the proscenium arch, in the shadows of the railings – but it’s big. Big and definitely moving.

Without warning, it dives down towards the stage.

The only thing stopping John from crying out is Sherlock’s leather clad hand, clamped over his mouth just barely in time.

John’s mind drifts back to when he was a child, and when he used to hide from the anteaters at the zoo. They were so big and blobby looking, but with an awful snout thing and a tongue that sucked up the ants with terrifying malice. What John sees now looks very much like those anteaters, except dark, leathery black, with sixteen glowing green eyes, spikes coming out of its back like a mutant stegosaurus, and with no legs – it’s floating over the stage as if it were swimming through the air, and it is the size of a rhinoceros.

Something clicks in his mind, something impossible and terrifying and not anything he wants to think about.

“Vide…” he whispers though Sherlock’s glove.

Sherlock takes his hand away and looks over. His eyes are wide with shock, which John finds quite a surprise. “What?” Sherlock mutters.

John shakes his head – it can’t be true. “I think… I think it’s called a vide,” he whispers. “But the vide… aren’t supposed to exist… They’re not real.”

Sherlock stares intently into his eyes. “What _are_ they?”

John struggles to remember. “They’re… a fairytale story, fairytale monsters. I don’t remember anything about them, just that they’re supposed to give you nightmares. But they’re like… like unicorns, Sherlock, or leprechauns. They’re _not real._ ”

Sherlock’s eyes shift back to the stage. “Fairies aren’t real, either,” he mutters.

John says nothing, but turns back as well. Something’s happening.

The vide (if that’s what it really is) shimmers, seeming to disappear, but not completely. As John watches, he decides that it feels vaguely like forgetting something, or falling asleep – but sweat is pouring down his brow from the heat in the room, all of it coming straight off of the monster over the stage.

Within a moment, the vide returns, and it’s holding something wrapped in its tongue. It’s two small orbs, about the size of a basket ball, connected by one thick bridge, each orb with other bridges going off of them – and the entire thing is made purely out of bright, blindingly golden light.

John’s eyes blow wide. _The lith._

Whatever this creature is, it can go between dimensions, he realizes. It can move into the dimensional plane of the lith and _interact_ with them.

“Impossible,” he mutters, gripping the railing before him. “Bloody impossible.”

The vide swoops over to the man on the side of the stage, holding out the lith with its long tongue – the man reaches out a hand and grabs it out of the air, as if it were nothing but a large rope. The two golden orbs dangle from each end.

He starts to walk over to the bodies on the floor. John grips the railing harder – whatever’s going on, it’s wrong, it’s so horribly wrong that the deepest pits of his very being are writhing in discomfort. The man on the stage takes one of the golden orbs and begins to extract it from the lith, pulling it apart with his hands, lith strands shredding off, with each passing moment feeling like a rip in John’s stomach lining –

There is a crash down below, to the side of the building.

The man stops what he’s doing to the lith, to John’s immense relief, and puts it down; it floats there in the air, hovering above the bodies. He says something to the vide in a language John can’t understand, and runs off quietly and stealthily to see what made the noise.

At long last, John lets his breath out. Sherlock turns to him, complete shock plastered over his face: something John rarely sees, but is far too perturbed to appreciate now. He’s panting and he can feel the absence of blood in his face.

“I–” Sherlock begins, speechless: yet another uncommon phenomenon. “What… do you understand what’s going on, John?”

John shakes his head, swallowing. “Nope. No. No idea. Do you?”

“No.”

John swallows again. “Well, _that’s_ a first.”

Sherlock breathes out. “I could be wrong, but I don’t really feel like it’s the proper time for sarcastic satire.”

“Have I called you a pretentious prick yet today?”

The taller man’s eyes don’t leave the stage, but he smiles through his blood-drained complexion. “Not that I can recall.”

“Okay. You’re a pretentious prick.”

Sherlock smirks. “Well, glad we’ve got _that_ settled.”

John grins through his pounding heartbeat and sweat-dripping brow, and lets his breath out. His pulse is finally beginning to slow when he looks over Sherlock’s shoulder and comes face to face with a long tongue and sixteen eyes.

“Sherlock!” he cries, backing away, but it’s too late – the vide has already lunged for… for…

_…the space in between us._

John’s eyes met Sherlock’s as the vide began to contort and shimmer again. John feels a tug in his chest, then a stronger pull, and then the second most painful sensation he’s ever experienced.

It feels as though his mind is being turned in on itself and his heart is being ripped out all at once. It feels as though something has torn open his chest and is gnawing up his insides. And all the while… Sherlock.

Sherlock, memories of Sherlock, thoughts of Sherlock, all flashing to the front of his mind and then slowly fading – no, not fading, being ripped apart, chunk by chunk, as if they’re being eaten.

 _Eaten_.

Despite the agony, John feels the horrible realization dawn on him just as he feels another terrible yank deep within the pit of his gut.

“Sherlock!” he cries, but his voice is choked and strained. He tries again. “Sher…lock!” He can’t see his friend through the spots over his eyes, but he screams again. “It’s… _eating_ … _the lith!_ Oh, _god…”_

His words are slurred, like they’re being pushed through a meat grinder before they exit his mouth, and he knows they’re not any good. His heartbeat is starting to slow and everything in him is being sucked up through a too-small straw, and his mind is starting to slip…

Everything in him unclenches.

He gulps in breath after breath of air as everything rushes back, his organs fitting into their proper places, his mind unfolding and all the chewed up thoughts and memories racing back and putting themselves back together. After a moment, he collapses on the floor.

A few seconds later, he finds the strength to stand and open his eyes.

He finds himself staring at howling vide, flailing in the open air just off of the balcony with green oozing out of two of its eyes, and Molly, standing stock still, holding a green-covered scalpel.

John opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

“Molly…” Sherlock begins, not bothering to hide his surprise. “How did you–”

“I always carry a scalpel around,” Molly answers nervously. She glances over at him. “You know. Just in case. You never know.”

Sherlock nods slowly, but instantly jumps and pushes Molly to the ground – the charging vide sails over the two of them. Over in the corner, the vide slows and turns, ready for another charge.

“The fire escape!” Sherlock yells; John nods.

“It was… _eating_ it,” Molly trembles, shivering where she stands but stumbling down the aisle. “The lith between you two. It was sucking it up like water through a straw…”

Despite his attempts to stay calm, John feels himself heave. He jumps out of the way as the monster charges past again, sailing through the air. He stands, and looks to Sherlock; upon receiving a nod, he runs to the door.

“Look after the bodies,” John hears Sherlock saying to Molly behind him. Molly nods, and Sherlock runs to catch up with John, bolting out the curtained door. The vide follows.

Immediately, they both screech to a halt. Standing right in front of them is the man from the stage, looking as ready to run as a deer caught in headlights. After a second, he races away.

“Stop!” Sherlock shouts, as if it’s going to do any good. Sherlock and John run after him, and they can both hear the vide sailing along behind them. The man turns a corner and goes through a small door to a set of stairs leading up – the vide crashes into the thin doorframe, unable to follow. After a second of bashing, it turns and glides away. John and Sherlock are already halfway up the stairs.

A door swings shut in front of them, opening to the pale evening sky – the roof. Sherlock bursts through the door, John following immediately afterward, and see the man standing at the edge of the roof only meters away.

Sherlock walks up, panting. “It’s no use trying to run,” he says. “Just come with us.”

After a terrible moment, the man flings his head back and laughs the most awful laugh John’s ever heard. He laughs until tears are streaming down his face and his cheeks can’t stretch any farther.

Finally, he reduces his mirth to a chuckle, and turns back to the two men. “So this is how it ends, then?” he says, still laughing slightly. “The great Sherlock Holmes. Never would have thought.”

Sherlock’s hands clench; he steps forwards. “Come. With. Us,” he demands.

The man laughs again. “You think I’m gonna let you catch me, Mr. Holmes? No, no. I’ve heard too much about you, from one person in particular. Did you know you’ve got a fan, Mr. Holmes?”

“Moriarty, I know,” says Sherlock coolly. “Now–”

“No,” the man interrupts. He lets out one last blast of a guffaw, and it’s as humorless as a funeral march. When he finishes, his face is grave and gray. “Well. Anyway. You know what they say about fairytales.”

John only realizes what the man’s about to do when he’s already tipped over the side of the building and is hurtling towards the ground, off the side where they can’t see.

Sherlock freezes, and John closes his eyes, letting his breath sag out of his body and hoping that the small thump he just heard in the distance wasn’t what he thought it was. When he opens his eyes again, Sherlock’s peering over the side of the building; when he turns back to look at John, his face tells everything. He nods, walking back towards the door. John turns to follow.

Suddenly, a _crash_ rings out from behind them.

John whips around to see a black figure rising into the air from the side of the building, its fourteen-and-a-half eyes glistening in the pale light. It seems to look directly at John before turning around and darting away through the night.

As it turns, John sees something in the grip of its proboscis-tongue: a golden rope with two golden orbs just barely attached.

_The lith._

He runs forward to the edge of the building. “We have to get that back,” he says frantically, pointing in the vide’s direction as it soars through the sky. “I don’t know how, but we’ve got to.”

He turns, almost jumping back when he sees Sherlock’s expression. The man is staring at him with a look he’s never seen on the detective’s face – or anyone’s face, for that matter – before, and it’s deep and determined and very resolute, and the most heartfelt thing he’s ever seen.

“Do you trust me?” Sherlock asks.

John opens his mouth, but shuts it and looks at the vide, disappearing into the night. Time is running out. He takes a deep breath, as though he’s sucking in the world. “Yes.”

“Then take off your coats.”

John only pauses for the slightest fraction of a second before stripping off the wool coat and then the nylon jacket, flinging them on the ground with a blind urgency. His exposed wings move gently side to side in the cold breeze.

Sherlock puts his hands on both of his shoulders and stares into his eyes. They flick back and forth, looking for something or trying to convey something, and John feels his chest slowly swelling and his heart slowly filling with dread and the entire exchange only takes less than a second, and then Sherlock uses all of his weight to push John to the right, tipping over and over until he’s falling and he keeps falling, because he’s gone over the side of the building.

John may have screamed, but he didn’t hear it, what with the wind rushing past his ears and his heart pounding through his body and his head. Fear and pure panic burn through his veins and nothing really registers in his mind except the ground approaching faster and faster and it doesn’t even really register when he feels a yank throughout his body, not until he looks around and realizes that he simply… isn’t falling anymore.

He can feel vibrations thrumming throughout his spine; there’s a buzzing behind him, quiet, coming from somewhere near the back of his neck.

His stomach lurches upward and his heart squeezes, hard.

_No. No no no no no no no._

He’s rising higher without meaning to – instinctively, he angles himself and he begins to rise faster, speeding up into the night. His guts clench and panic resurfaces underneath his skin. His fingernails are digging into the heels of his hands, nearly drawing blood.

_NO. Please, god, NO._

He turns and looks down – Sherlock’s standing on the rooftop, staring up at him, the widest and most honest smile John’s ever seen plastered across every inch of his receding face.

Something bursts in John’s chest.

_Oh, god, YES._

John beats his wings faster, turning until he can see the black dot of the vide far ahead. Thankfully, he’s much faster than that lumbering anteater. He smirks, and then smiles.

_I can fly. I can bloody fly._

_Thank god._

Without another thought, he shoots forward through the sky, his wings screaming with relief in their newfound freedom. The frigid night air and the harsh winds whipping against his face greet him like an old friend; the adrenaline courses through his veins with every pump of his swelling heart. Everything inside him has been aching for this for the past three years of denial and longing and pain; all of it releases and spreads like a first breath after near suffocation. He pushes his wings faster and zips through the darkness, closer and closer to the monster ahead, and it feels _so good._

He smiles again, and it’s a real smile, and the vide is only a meter away.

John reaches into his pocket and pulls out his old army gun, trusty as ever, aiming straight where he knows it will hurt. After a moment more than usual – it’s considerably harder to aim correctly when flying at top speed – he pulls the trigger, and the bullet buries itself deep within the vide’s biggest eyeball.

Letting out a screech, the vide drops the lith into the grasp of the dark and cold sky. John darts under and grasps it, his hands instantly warming like those of a daring child at a campfire who went too close to the flame. Above him, the vide writhes and starts to shimmer and fade. Within a moment or so, it’s gone completely.

John looks down at his hands. The lith is sitting there within his fingers, a mass of pure light, bright as the midday sun.

After a second, it flickers. John blinks. It flickers again, and again.

 _Oh no,_ he thinks, and he makes a one eighty and begins to frantically search for the theater that he came from. As he does so, he pulls out his phone and dials Sherlock’s number, careful to keep a strong grip on the lith with his other hand.

“John?” says Sherlock, picking up. “Where are you? Did you get the lith? Are you alright?”

“Get the bodies outside,” John demands. Far off in the distance, he spots the theater, and he starts streaking toward it. The lith flickers more violently in his hand. “We don’t have much time. The lith is fading.”

“Time for what?” Sherlock asks, taking a moment to relay John’s instructions to someone else that John can’t name.

“I can save them,” John pants, flying as fast as his wings will allow. His back starts to ache with the effort, but the golden light has already gone translucent in his fingers. “They’re not dead, they never were dead. I’ve figured it out.”

Sherlock shouts at someone on the other end of the phone line – John can hear him moving around. Wind whips past his ears, blowing his short hair this way and that. “What do you mean?” Sherlock asks.

John takes a breath, sweat dripping down his brow. “That man used the vide to bring the lith into this dimension and steal it. But when a lith is really strong, like this one is, sometime it gets entangled with the person’s soul, or the essence of their being, their consciousness.” The theater is growing closer – John can see police cars outside, the little blue and red lights little dots on the ground. “So when the vide pulled the lith away, it pulled their souls out with it.”

Sherlock says nothing, but John doesn’t put down the phone. He starts to descend, diving steeper, down toward the crowd around the bodies he can see lying on the ground of the sidewalk. “Are they ready?” he asks.

“Yes,” Sherlock responds.

“Good,” John breathes, and folds his wings in and drops like a rock head-first through the sky.

•••

At first, he was just a little pinprick of golden far off in the night. He looked like a star, nothing more. After a while, he grew until he couldn’t have been a star, and that’s when Lestrade and the others noticed what Sherlock was looking at. The golden dot had grown bigger and closer and closer, until everyone was huddling around Sherlock and the bodies, trying to get a better look at the bright mini sun flying at them through the atmosphere.

Sherlock feels his heart go into his throat as John drops and dives, but it’s not because of fear. It’s something else entirely, and Sherlock’s really not as stupid about these things as he seems to be. He knows _exactly_ what this feeling is, although he doesn’t care to admit it.

John comes to a screeching halt somewhere around the height of a second story building, and that’s when Sherlock’s breath catches. The golden tendrils of light curl around John’s body, caught and reflected in every rapid, buzzing flap of John’s windowpane wings; he looks for all the world as if he’s cradling the sun in his arms. Sherlock can hear the gasps and the stiff, shocked silence of the police officers around him, and Molly’s muffled squeak to his side; he hears, but he doesn’t _notice_ them, because he’s far too preoccupied with the surreal and ethereal sight before him.

Sherlock can imagine what all the idiots around him must be seeing: a glowing figure descending from the heavens, majestic and grand and bright as the summer sun on a cloudless day, golden tendrils flying this way and that – angelic enough to make any atheist consider converting. But as he gazes up at the descending near-apparition, Sherlock sees… John, nothing but loyal, determined John, wonderful John, the _true_ John – _his_ John – and yes, he knows _exactly_ what this feeling inside him is. It’s a most affectionate sort of pride.

John lands gently, but not too gracefully, with a slight _thud_ on the pavement. His wings fold back inward to their neutral position; he sprints quickly over to the two bodies lying on the ground, striding past the stunned men and women who stand in a choked silence around him. By the time he reaches the women, the lith has dulled to the brightness of a cheap flashlight in his arms. Sherlock comes over as he kneels and places one of the orbs in the air near Hamilton, and one just over Mason. He lets go, and the two orbs sink, growing brighter as they dissolve into the women’s chests.

A moment passes. Another does as well.

Hamilton is the first to open her eyes and gasp.

•••

John lets out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in, and wipes the freezing sweat off his brow and back into his damp hair. In another moment, Mason follows the suit of her flatmate, sitting up and grasping Hamilton for support.

John kneels down in front of them as they gasp for air and look wildly about them. When Hamilton meets his eyes, he smiles kindly.

“What…” she gasps, panting. “What…”

“You’re alright,” he says, nodding. “You’re fine, don’t worry. We’ll explain everything later.”

She looks around herself. “Are you… police?”

He nods, and feels a tap on his shoulder. He looks up.

Sherlock looks away immediately, but not before John catches a glimpse of the expression on his face: happy and satisfied and perhaps a bit shocked, but definitely very guilty and worried.

“Erm,” Sherlock coughs. He holds his hands behind his back. “That… what you did. That was… good.”

After a moment, John stands. He’s painfully aware of all the people staring at him, but for once, he doesn’t try to pull in his wings – there’s no point to it now, everyone’s seen them already. He draws himself up to his full height and looks Sherlock square in the eyes.

He pauses, and then draws back and punches Sherlock as hard as he can in the jaw.

Sherlock reels back, clutching his chin, but looking resigned. “I probably deserved–”

“You bastard,” John says, and tackles him, wrapping his arms around the man’s thin waist and pulling him in, squeezing hard enough to crush bone. When he feels Sherlock’s arms encircle his shoulders and his gloved hands brush against the skin of his wings, he relaxes, falling into the warmth and steady rise and fall of Sherlock’s coat and chest. He stays that way for what could have been hours, or a second and a half.

“Thank you,” he whispers into the man’s upturned collar, pressing his nose for a second into his long neck.

Sherlock squeezes his arms a bit, and nods. “I was right,” he whispers back. “You _could_ do it, you just needed a push.”

“I didn’t realize you meant a _literal_ push, you complete madman.”

It’s the first time he’s said the word in a month, but this time he says it with a smile and far more affectionate connotations. He can hear Sherlock taking in a breath to answer, but he hears some commotion and a scream behind them and releases him, turning to see what’s going on.

A few of the police officers have apprehended Lucy Heralds, who apparently tried to sneak past them through the side door. John looks to Sherlock, who nods in response to his silent question: _We’ve had enough for tonight. We can question her later._

Sherlock goes back to talk with the two women lying on the ground, leaving John standing in a sea of people who are trying to look like they’re not staring at him and failing far too miserably to be comical. He swallows, and pulls his wings in tighter. Sherlock doesn’t seem to have his jacket – he must have left it on the roof, the bastard.

So John puts his hands behind his back like he usually does, and tries to wander around aimlessly. His method works until he turns and comes face to face with Lestrade.

John freezes, his pulse growing in tempo. He casts his eyes to the ground and Lestrade continues to stare, mouth only ajar in the slightest, eyes completely blank with shock and jawbone clenched – working itself back and forth.

The pause between them seems to stretch into an infinity of horribleness.

John keeps his eyes darting over the ground.

His wings begin to itch.

Lestrade closes his mouth. “You’re one of them.”

It isn’t a statement, it’s a question: a need of verification, and for a second, John wonders what would happen if he answered in the negative. Would the events of the past few minutes be erased; would Lestrade simply go back to believing in John’s unquestioned humanity; would his wings simply disappear? He ponders this for longer than he should, long enough for the pause to become even more painful than it already was.

He breathes out. “Yes,” he says.

Lestrade pauses again. “All this time? Really?”

John nods. “Yeah.”

There are other people gathering around them; this conversation is no longer private. John’s never felt so _studied_ in his life. Lestrade looks up. “That bloke,” he says, slowly – “in Afghanistan. The… fairy bloke, who was shot. That was you, wasn’t it?”

John closes his eyes. “Yeah. That was me.”

Lestrade purses his lips a little, visibly struggling with his words. “And you’re really… you’re really a… a fairy? Really?”

John doesn’t want to say any more, so he only nods.

Lestrade sucks in a breath and lets it out slowly, raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes. “Well,” he says. “That’s… well.” He clears his throat. “I’d still be up for that pint, if you are.”

John looks up, his mouth opening. He sees what Lestrade’s trying to say written in the man’s urgent eyes, and nods, smiling slowly.

“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe once we’ve got this case all sorted out.”

Lestrade nods gratefully and pats him on the shoulder. “Erm. Good. Yeah. You and Sherlock can come in for statements tomorrow, I can see it’s been a long day.”

“It has been, yes. Thank you.” John nods again, and Lestrade walks off. He adjusts his posture, standing up a bit straighter, and trying not to smile. He lets his wings relax, although he’s still far too aware of the remaining officers still staring at him. The squeezing of his chest reminds him of that.

Suddenly, there’s a hand on his shoulder, and Sherlock’s standing next to him. John looks over, and the hand slides off. “Hamilton and Mason are in shock, but they’re being taken to the hospital to make sure there’s no injury to either of them. I tried talking to Heralds, but she’s far too traumatized to say anything useful or even halfway coherent.” He looks around. “Did we have any lunch today?”

“No, we were too busy running around London, as per usual.”

Sherlock thinks for a moment. “Take-in? From the Thai restaurant down the street?”

“That one with the little duck… things? On the noodles?”

Sherlock nods. “The very same.”

“Sounds perfect,” John smiles, and starts walking down the street after giving the scene a last once-over and seeing nothing amiss. They only make it a few steps away before he hears a familiar voice behind him:

“Should’ve known you were one of them.”

His heart seizes. Slowly, he turns, only to see Donovan standing with her hip out and her arms crosses, looking more off put than she would probably admit to. She stands up straighter when she meets his eyes.

“They way you hung around freak like that, always looking so _shifty_ ,” she sneers John can just register that her voice is shaking. “I should have known you were a freak yourself.”

John’s guts are clenching and unclenching, but he’s just saved two lives and he’s not going to stand there and be taken down by this woman, of all people. He turns around so that he’s facing her fully and squares his jaw. “Just shut up,” he spits – it doesn’t sound nearly as harsh as he wants it to. “If you think your fucking opinion matters bugger-all, then–”

“Don’t _talk_ to me, you _maggot!_ ” she screeches, and John’s heart stops.

He feels as though his insides are imploding. He reaches out and grabs Sherlock’s arms to stop himself from collapsing onto the street. Everything is too dark and too bright and too cold all at once and his breaths are too shallow and his lungs are too small.

Without another word in her direction, John staggers down the street and through the dark, leaning on Sherlock and choking on air.

•••

The cab hits a bump, and John jerks. He looks over at Sherlock, who’s been looking at him for the past five minutes. He tries to breathe, and he isn’t doing a very good job at it.

He leans over and puts his head on the window. “Maggot,” he mumbles. He closes his eyes.

“Hm?” Sherlock leans a bit closer.

“That word,” he says again, quietly. “It’s what they called me, back in school. For eight years, I was never John. Just Maggot. Always, to everyone. Maggot. Mag for short. Students said it, teachers, parents, everyone. Some people didn’t even know my name. I was just… Maggot.”

Sherlock pauses for the longest time before replying.

“You were wonderful tonight,” he says. He says it quietly.

John looks over. Sherlock’s leaning against the other window, looking at him. The expression in his eyes says everything.

John leans in the opposite direction until he’s resting on the soft wool of Sherlock’s coat, and he turns inwards. He buries his face in his friend’s shoulder, and he cries there until the cabbie turns around and announces that they’ve arrived at 221 Baker Street, and Sherlock tells him he’d better get up, they’re home.


	12. A Cuppa, a Pint, and Case Closed

The jacket had been left on the rooftop. Sherlock had done it on purpose – something he’d never admit to – but is starting to regret it, as he watches John walk from the cab down the block the next day, shivering in the wintery chill.

He thought about offering up his coat again, but he doubts John would accept it a second time. Sherlock is grateful that John covets those jumpers so much, as they do come in handy from time to time. As they make their way down the street, Sherlock can just barely make out the bumps beneath the thick knit, casting tiny shadows that you only could see if you were looking for them. He looks away, closing his eyes for a moment, and opens the door to the New Scotland Yard.

They walk up to Lestrade’s office. The people around them are staring more than usual, and most aren’t even trying to hide it or be the slightest bit discreet. Sherlock gives all of them glares, but it doesn’t do much good. He catches John’s eye a few times, and nods – the entire Yard must know about what happened last night by now, which isn’t a surprise. Still, every stare and whisper and raised eyebrow and wide eyes that get cast John’s way feels like a needle sticking into an exposed nerve – they’re the same stares Sherlock gets on a regular basis, the same kind he’s been getting his whole life. He glares at a couple of officers pointing from the corner until they back away; he’s used to that kind of look by now, but no one should ever, _ever_ look at John like that. The very thought that anyone might treat John Watson the way they treat him makes him sick.

He casts his eyes to the ground, and moves closer to John as they walk.

John’s the first to knock on Lestrade’s door – Sherlock sees Lestrade look up and nod to them, waving for them to come in. He says hello to John and nods to Sherlock – their usual greeting, if there is a greeting at all – and Sherlock catches him glance more than once at John’s back, moving his jaw back and forth and furrowing his brow, opening his mouth as if to say something but never finding the words to speak.

Five minutes later, they’re situated in a room with Lestrade and Lucy Heralds. She’s not handcuffed, but there are guards at the door and she’s far too terrified to try anything. Sherlock sits up straighter as John folds his hands on the table in that way he does. Lestrade leans against the wall in the corner.

Sherlock breathes in. “You were–”

“I didn’t _do_ anything!” Lucy screeches. Her voice echoes around the small space in ear-piercing vibrations.

Sherlock takes a moment, the well-timed pause he expertly delivers whenever he wants to make anyone uncomfortable. It seems to work: Lucy squirms in her seat. “You were in the building last night, where the bodies were,” he continues, as if he was never interrupted in the first place. “What were you doing there?”

“Nothing!” she squeals again, flinching as if she’d been smacked. “God, _nothing_ , why am I even _here_?”

Sherlock sighs. “Miss Heralds, no one appeared to be actually killed during this whole case, so if you really didn’t do _anything_ then you’ve got no reason to be tight-lipped.” He sits back and lets the words sink in. “Now. What were you doing in that theater?”

She breathes in, and looks at her hands in her lap. She works herself up for a long time before she finally speaks. “They said… he said, it was the perfect place,” she says, “-for doing something you don’t want anyone else to know about. If you pay them enough, they’ll let you use it – the theater, I mean.” She swallows, and looks up. “They advertise so no one else will come in while you’re… doing it. I paid him and showed up on time…”

Sherlock’s head moves back in understanding. “An empty theater,” he says, “an empty space for committing any crime you like – just pay them a fee and they’ll advertise a phony show, hand over the space for a night, and make sure no one comes in. Is that right?”

Lucy nods. She looks back down. “But… I didn’t… I didn’t break any laws. I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh for god’s sake!” Lestrade bursts from the corner. Three heads swivel towards him. “Those women were _dead_ , of _course_ you bloody did something!”

Sherlock rolls his eyes discreetly and looks back at Lucy. He narrows his gaze down to a laser pinpoint, under which she writhes in her seat.

“Miss Heralds, until we can find out what really happened to those women, we’re classifying their state as a trauma-induced coma.” He leans back and continues to stare at her. “Unless you tell us the truth, Detective Inspector Lestrade here will hold you for attempted murder, which you’ll have to defend yourself against in court. Now. Are you ready to tell us what happened?”

Oh, does she look terrified. Sherlock smirks to himself, in a way so small that no one else can see it. Finally, Lucy breaks.

“I wanted her back,” she chokes out, her eyes beginning to water. “I just wanted her back!”

“You wanted Esmé back?” Sherlock finishes.

She nods, bursting into tears.

“So what did you do?” Sherlock pushes, impatient.

She chokes up her tears, but more keep coming. “This… man…” she gets out, finally – “I don’t know his name, he just called himself Switch – he said he could help me make her love me again…” She sobs for a moment, then collects herself. “I told him she was in love with Linda. He said that… if I paid enough… he could take Linda’s end of the lith…” She paused, and looked up. “The lith is this thing that­–”

“I know what it is,” Sherlock snaps, waving a hand impatiently. She sniffs and continues, nodding weakly.

“He said…” she wipes her eyes, and looks up. “He said he could take out Linda’s end, and put it in me, and Esmé would love me again.”

Sherlock leans back, beginning to smirk just the smallest bit – oh this is good, this really is good. “Elegant,” he mutters quietly.

“Elegant?” John repeats. He comes over and shakes his head. “No, god, this… bloody insane. That’s _… that’s_ impossible.” John looks over at Lucy. “How can he do that?”

She sniffs again. “To get the lith, he used–”

“-the vide,” John finishes. He puts his fingers over his eyes and closes his lids. “Oh, yes, of course. Dear god.”

“Um, sorry, excuse me,” said Lestrade suddenly from the corner – he walks over to where they’re crowded around the table. “What the _fuck_ are you all talking about?”

Sherlock looks up at him – his eyes flick over to John, who sighs. “Later. It’s a lot to explain,” he says. Lestrade nods, and backs away.

Lucy’s still trembling in her seat, tears streaming down her face. Sherlock looks her up and down, his flickering eyes just barely landing on every inch of her skin and clothing, alighting for a second and flashing away with a mixture of apathy and slight disgust. _Interesting case, pathetic criminal,_ he thinks to himself. With a sigh, he stands.

“Well, that’s everything,” he says, flashing Lestrade a faux-grin. “Come along, John.”

“Hold on, wait!” calls Lestrade as they’re leaving the room. He stands there, looking about as lost and infuriated as a person can look. “What were you even talking about? What am I supposed to do with her?”

Sherlock’s eyes flick over to the woman, twisted in her seat to look at him. She’s pleading with her face, and that’s really just the best – oh, he loves it when they plead.

“Attempted murder and assault,” he says simply, smiling humorlessly again. “That’s really all you need to know; John will fill you in on the details later. Lock her up, Lestrade, that’s really what you do best.”

With a swish of his coat, he strides from the room, Oxford shoes clacking on the floor as he goes. The satisfaction of the closed case is almost enough to make him forget the harsh stares and snipped whispers that shoot daggers at John beside him, in the way a heavy dose of morphine in the hospital can almost make you forget that you’re dying.

•••

John only looks up when he hears the light chink of ceramic on wood. His eyes move up just in time to catch Sherlock’s vampirically pale hand lifting up and out of sight, away from where a steaming mug of tea has been placed on the table.

He stares at it for a bit, before turning and looking at the man walking back to his seat with his own mug steamy hot in his hands. “What’s this?” he asks, just as Sherlock’s sitting down.

“Tea,” Sherlock answers, sipping out of his own mug and blowing on it.

“Well, yes, I know it’s tea.” John thinks, and realizes something. “You’re… apologizing, aren’t you?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer. He sips more tea.

“You are.”

Again, Sherlock doesn’t answer.

John picks up the mug, holding it in his hands. It’s just under scalding – not hot enough to burn your tongue, but just enough to nip – which is exactly how John likes it. He holds it under his nose and lets the tendrils of steam waft into his nostrils; English Breakfast, the expensive kind from Fortnum and Mason. Finally, he takes a little sip.

He stares at the cup, and takes another sip, and another. Just the right amount of cream and sugar – exactly how he always prepares it for himself.

“You know, most people would be more concerned if I threw them off a building,” Sherlock remarks from the chair across the room.

John keeps staring at his cup. “Actually, right now I’m more concerned about the fact that you know my exact cream and sugar preferences.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “Why? I’ve made you tea before, and I’ve seen you prepare it for yourself. Is it really such a surprise that I picked up on that?”

“Well, for someone who didn’t know that the Earth goes around the sun, yes.”

Sherlock moans, his head rolling back. “Oh, not _that_ again.”

“I may or may not have put that in my blog,” John comments with a slight grin.

“You haven’t written anything in over a month.”

“Nice to know you’re keeping tabs. I’m writing up the taxi driver case, I’m almost done.”

“Oh, god.” Sherlock sighs, staring at the ceiling.

“Hey, what happened to the whole apologizing-for-throwing-me-off-a-building thing?” John sips more of his tea. “I sort of liked that.”

“You said you weren’t concerned about it.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean you’re not a complete sod.”

John waits for the sound of Sherlock’s grin, but it doesn’t come. He looks up to find the man staring at him with an expression of what can only be worry and guilt.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he says. “I wish I hadn’t.”

John pushes his seat back so he can get a better look at him. “Hold on, no, don’t say that,” he says. He furrows his brow. “Just because I didn’t like it when you shoved me off a roof doesn’t mean I’m not glad you did.”

Silence, and then Sherlock nods slowly.

John clears his throat and holds his tea with both hands. “It really was pretty rude,” he says, “and insane, and terrifying, and potentially lethal. But it was probably the nicest and most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

Sherlock doesn’t respond – John didn’t expect him to.

“Thank you,” John says.

Finally, Sherlock’s eyes flick up and meet his, and he’s met with a shockingly heartfelt and caring expression, honest and bared. It’s only there for a second, and then gone with the swiftness of a mask being slipped into place. John smiles, and gulps down the rest of his tea.

As he walks out of the room, his wings are held high up, angled toward the ceiling – the highest they’ve been in ages.

•••

The phone’s chirp is almost quiet to go unheard, but luckily, Lestrade is just unoccupied enough to notice it.

He takes it out of his back pocket and hesitates only for a moment when he sees the name. He hits the “answer call” button and holds the mobile to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hi, it’s John.”

Lestrade clears his throat. “Er, yeah. Hello.”

“Is the case all settled?” John asks.

“Yeah, it’s… well, for the most part.” Lestrade sighs. “Of all the cases I’ve worked on with Sherlock, I swear this one makes the least sense.”

“Well, it’s not really stuff you’d know about.”

“ _You_ knew about it,” Lestrade says.

John clears his throat. “Yes. Well. I… learned it all growing up.”

Lestrade pauses, awkwardly. He’s not sure if he should bring it up or not. “Er. Because of your… because of… er.”

“Because I’m a fairy, yes,” John says. Lestrade shuts his eyes and breathes out slowly. “You just… tell your kid that sort of stuff, when you’re a fairy, because they’re not going to learn it anywhere else.”

“Mmhm,” Lestrade coughs, tapping his foot against the ground. He looks about himself, trying to make sense of anything at all.

John doesn’t say anything for a long time.

Lestrade starts to wonder if he should just hang up altogether.

Finally, John clears his throat again. “So,” he says, his voice fuzzy and soft through the receiver – “How about that pint?”

•••

“-and he just bloody blew his head at me! Kept telling me, ‘I told you so, I bloody told you, young man! I _told_ you were going to fly into a telephone wire one of these days!’” Lestrade laughs, rearing his head back with his eyes shut. John laughs as well, stopping to take a swig of his beer. “God, he never let me live that down. Didn’t even _care_ that I didn’t get electrocuted, just that he was bloody right.”

“My mum was like that,” Lestrade says, grinning. “I used to skateboard, when I was a kid. I loved it.”

“My sister did, too,” John comments. “Actually, I think she still does.”

“She would always throw a fit whenever I came home with anything more than a scratch,” Lestrade continues. “Then, one day, I broke my arm, and she took away my bloody skateboard. Then it was _my_ turn to throw a fit.”

John giggles, even though it wasn’t really that funny. They’re both a bit tipsy, just a little bit, really. Just enough to take the edge off. The past fifteen minutes sort of flew bye once the initial awkwardness wore off and the first gulps of beer were downed. The fairy thing wasn’t mentioned until Lestrade asked John why he wasn’t wearing his wings out – as hesitantly and awkwardly as humanly possible – and John had answered that he was didn’t want to draw attention to himself. After another moment or so, John had told Lestrade the whole truth – that he was afraid – and any apprehension Lestrade had shown in the past slowly ebbed away.

After a moment of silence and gulps of beer, Lestrade sets his glass down with a thud. “Look, John, I’m… I’m sorry,” he says. He looks away for a moment and clears his throat. “When all this started… I had no idea that it was like this for you.”

John coughs and sets his beer down. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine.” Lestrade sighs and looks straight at him. “There was a moment, a week ago, at the end of the case, at the theatre, when you were… _flying_ down from the sky, and I first saw you and I realized… _what_ was going on, what you were…” He closes his eyes and sighs again. “…and I was afraid of you. Afraid, or disgusted, or something. I don’t know. Look, the point is… I was stupid. I didn’t understand – I mean, I still don’t really understand, but I’m working on it – but now I get it. You’re still the man I always knew, you’re still my mate. And I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

John sits in shocked silence for a long time – finally, a smile begins to warm his face.

He nods, grinning. “Thank you, Greg. That means a lot, it really does.”

Lestrade nods in return. “Alright. Good.” He picks his glass back up and takes a swig. “Just don’t start _glowing_ or something while we’re on a case.”

John resists the urge to roll his eyes, and laughs instead. “I don’t glow.”

“You don’t?” Lestrade raises an eyebrow. “What _do_ you do?”

“What, isn’t flying enough?” John says.

“No, flying’s fucking brilliant,” Lestrade says. “I just thought fairies would be… you know…”

“Smaller?” John says, smiling into his glass.

“Well, I was going to say more _magical,_ but yeah, I thought they’d be smaller. If they existed at all, I mean.”

“I get that a _lot_ ,” John says. “Sometimes people have asked me if I can shrink or something, or if I get smaller under the full moon, that sort of stuff.”

“Wait… _can_ you shrink?”

“No,” John chuckles.

“Okay, fine, so fairies are big,” Lestrade says. He takes a swig. “Then, what _can_ you do?”

“Um, besides flying? Well, nothing, really.” John thinks about it for a moment. “Nothing human’s can’t do if they try. But, I mean… flying’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah.” Lestrade leans back in his seat. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

John smiles, and downs the rest of his beer.

•••

John slips on his pajamas. He pulls up his flannel trousers but decides against a shirt. Instead, he walks to the bathroom, chest bared, and brushes his teeth.

Once his teeth are brushed, he finds himself staring at the mirror. He studies the reflection peering back at him; he needs to shave – probably should get a hair cut soon, too. There’s a thin layer of hair covering his fair-sized pectorals; not quite as defined as they were in the army, but his adventures with Sherlock have kept him fit.

A moment passes, and he finds himself turning to get a look at his wings. He doesn’t have to twist that much to see them. Two forewings and two hindwings, sticking out two and a half, maybe three feet. No, two and a half. His eyes wash over the glassy chitin skin; window-panes and black veins. Costal margin, discal cell, pterostigma, radius, media, cubitus – his mind runs through the anatomical names he was made to memorize as a child. He doesn’t need to think about them now; the words are as familiar as “hand” or “kneecap.”

John runs his hand along his left forewing, letting his fingers bend the chitin slightly as they run across the smooth surface. He lowers his hands and flicks his wings up and out, and again, and again, faster and faster until they’ve settled into the familiar rhythm that thrums throughout his body like his own heartbeat, and his feet lift off the ground.

He stares at himself in the mirror, a pretty peculiar sight now that he thinks about it – short bloke in his pajama bottoms floating about in his bathroom – and only stops fluttering when his head hits the ceiling and the shock knocks him to the ground. He falls, _hard,_ and collapses in a heap on the tile floor.

When he’s shaken himself off, he stands, and walks out of the room. He takes one step into the hallway and freezes. Slowly, he puts his foot down.

His wings start flapping again, gently but hard enough to get him off the ground. Once he’s an inch or two above the floor, he angles forward and flies down the hall, up the stairs, into his bedroom and he lands on top of his bed.

John looks around, nods satisfactorily and slowly drifts off to sleep.

•••

Sherlock jumps back when a figure whizzes by him. He stops, looks up the stairs where the figure disappeared, and looks back.

 _John_ , he thinks to himself, and smiles, walking back to the kitchen and returning to his experiment.


	13. Sober

Sherlock exits his mind palace with a quick opening of eyes and a drawn out sigh. The morning light is streaming through the windows behind where he lies on the couch – a quick glance at the clock says it’s eight fifteen. He looks into the kitchen. John’s already fixing himself breakfast – dry cereal and marmite on toast – and putting the kettle on. The golden rays reflect off his hair and his wings and his skin and illuminate the rest of the kitchen. Sherlock blinks, because for a moment John looks like he’s glowing. He blinks again and it’s gone.

John turns and sees Sherlock sitting up on the couch, and nods in his direction. “Cereal this morning,” he says. “Come fix yourself a bowl.”

Sherlock sighs and drops his head back onto the pillow.

“Thought you’d say that. Just come to the table, I’ll make you some.”

“Not interested.”

“I know. Now come on, it’ll get soggy.”

After a torturous moment in silence, Sherlock whips himself up from the couch and stumbles over to the table. John’s just sitting down, lifting the toast to his lips and chewing as he stares at Sherlock, waiting. Sherlock grumbles a bit, but sits down and eats.

John raises an eyebrow. “What, no fuss? No argument? You’re just going to eat, just like that?”

“Piss off,” Sherlock mumbles through a mouthful of cornflakes.

“Nothing short of a bloody miracle, this.”

“Unless you want the remains of my liver experiment dumped in your bed sheets, I’d advise you to shut up.”

John gives him a look. “Do that and I’m kicking you out of your bed and making you sleep on the couch.”

Sherlock scoffs, holding his empty spoon up in his hand. “I’d like to see you try.”

“I’d like to see you stop me.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes and shoots him daggers, but John only smiles and helps himself to more toast. Sherlock’s cereal is getting soggy and his head is pounding with early morning-ness, and his limbs already droop with lethargy. The noise coming from the open window is deafening, and his feet are cold and clammy.

It’s times like this that Sherlock wonders how he ever thought he was happy before.

He takes a bit of his cereal. Still edible. He eats the rest.

When he finishes, John takes away his bowl and goes to put the dishes in the washer. Sherlock watches him as he goes, deducing in his head.

“You’ve got the morning off from the surgery,” he remarks.

“Mmhm,” John replies.

“But you went shopping yesterday.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes and breathes out heavily. “So where are you going now?”

John sighs. “I thought it was time to visit–” he begins, but Sherlock’s mind has beaten him to it.

“Your sister?” Sherlock finishes. He makes a face. “Why would you go see _her_?”

John sighs again, walking over from the kitchen. “She’s still hiding liquor in her house somewhere. And she… she can’t get by on her own for too long that well. She thinks she can, but she can’t. I just have to check in on her once in a while.”

Sherlock harrumphs, but says nothing. He leans back in his chair and tilts his head back, closing his eyes and pretending to be deep in thought.

John seems to get the message, because the next thing Sherlock knows, there’s a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be back by noon,” John says; the voice is warm in Sherlock’s ear, and the hand stays for a second more, then slides off. John’s footsteps echo down the hall and the stairs. The memory of the pressure on Sherlock’s shoulder stays imprinted there until he hears the front door slam, and John is gone.

Sherlock’s head tilts up, and in a moment he springs from his chair. Noon… that gives him around three hours. Just enough time to finish his experiment before John gets home.

He wonders if John will notice the missing china.

•••

When John arrives at Harry’s flat, the first thing he smells is her breath – the reason he notices it is that it’s clean. He freezes in the doorway, sniffing for the smell of sweat and stale alcohol, but there’s only the stench of sweat. He gives his sister a once over, and there’s no doubt about it. She’s sober.

“Hullo, kid brother,” she says, opening the door and grinning (a tad sarcastically, which is to be expected.) “Here to clear out my cupboards again?”

John pauses for a moment – he hast to be sure that this isn’t some kind of joke – before speaking. “Well. Yes… I’m. I’m just here to check up on you.”

Harry scowls. “‘Check up’ my arse,” she says as she turns and walks into the flat. “Did always love playing doctor, didn’t you? Well, you may be a real doctor now, but you sure as hell aren’t mine. ‘Check up’ my _arse._ ”

“Right,” John says, because he isn’t in the mood for arguing. As he walks through her shabby living room, he begins to notice… differences. It’s neater, for one. It’s not technically _clean_ , but at least there aren’t dirty tissues and old food lying about the place. The scent of spray-bottle air freshener lingers on the breeze that blows the dust around the room. Some of Harry’s treasured rune and spell books are lying open on the couch – another stack of dusty tomes takes up the far corner. A few things are floating about here and there, turning into random objects and occasionally setting themselves on fire. Scorch marks litter the floor, and the smell of sulfur and arsenic still waft around. Even in all of the Harry-esque chaos, things just seem a bit… tidier.

Harry notices his staring, as if she was waiting for him to notice. She stops walking, and comes back over to him, standing in an almost defensive way.

“Problem?” she asks, although John can tell she’s trying to provoke him – start a fight. She knows exactly what he’s thinking.

Again, he’s not in the mood. “No, not at all,” he says, and follows her into the bedroom.

He stands in the doorway as Harry walks over to the dresser. She reaches into the top drawer, pulls out a couple of bras – _so that’s where she was hiding it, no bloody wonder_ – and finally draws out a half empty bottle of hard liquor. He steps forward to take it from her and notices something on the bedside table. His hand freezes in the air.

Words aren’t coming to him that well at the moment. “Harry…” he says slowly. He takes a breath and tries again. “Is that… a cosmetics case on your table?”

Harry stiffens considerably. John can tell that she’s been waiting for him to notice this, too. “Yeah. Problem?”

“Erm.” He looks it over to make sure he’s right. “Cosmetics case?”

She corrects her defensive posture. “Yeah?”

“You don’t wear makeup.”

“No, I don’t,” she says, crossing her arms.

He takes another deep breath.

“Harry…” he says, “have you got… a girlfriend?”

She tries to hide the tiny spark in her eyes, but John catches it. “Yeah, I do,” she says. She smiles, a little smugly, a little not. “You didn’t think I’d spend forever being heartbroken over Clara, did you?”

 _Well, yes,_ John thinks, but he doesn’t say that. “Harry,” he says instead, “you’re still in love with her. You _know_ you’re still in love with her.”

Harry bristles. “Yes, maybe I am, and I always will be, John. That doesn’t mean I can’t move on and live my life without her.”

He sighs and rubs a hand over the nape of his neck. “You can’t just pretend you don’t love her, Harry.”

She narrows her eyes. “What the hell do _you_ know?” she snaps. “You’ve never lost anyone you loved like that. You never made the love of your life _hate_ you. What do you know about me or my life? And what the _hell_ makes you think you know Clara better than I do?”

He opens his mouth and closes it, and looks at the floor. After a long time, he speaks. “I’m not saying any of that. I just… you can’t just spend the rest of your life wishing you had her and pretending you don’t.”

“Shut _up_ , John!” Harry yells, and John notices for the first time how truly upset she is. She balls her hands up into fists. “You think you know everything. You’ve always thought that. You’ve been to the army so you think you know the meaning of life and death. You’ve got a perfect relationship with your perfect boyfriend so you think you know the meaning of love.”

John staggers back; he wasn’t expecting that. “Harry, we’re not…” he begins. Suddenly, he’s not sure what to say. _What_ aren’t they? What _are_ they? “We’re not like that, we’re–”

“Right, I forgot,” she says snidely, rolling her eyes. “You’re not _shagging,_ so it’s not a _real_ relationship. God, here you are, bloody lecturing me for finding a girlfriend just because I still haven’t gotten over my very recent _divorce_ , and you can’t even find the balls to admit that you and your best friend are mad for each other! What the hell gives _you_ the right to lecture _me?_ ”

Harry’s words pound through his brain along with the throbbing of his head and his veins. John closes his eyes – the world feels a little like it’s spinning. He should probably head home now.

“I’ll take this, thank you,” he says, picking the bottle up from where he dropped it on the bed. He turns to look at her. “Just… don’t get hurt, alright?”

She gives a sharp, humorless laugh in response.

John nods, turns on his heels, and makes his way through the flat and towards the exit. When he’s about to reach it, the door slams shut of it’s own accord – Harry’s footsteps walk up behind him. He doesn’t turn around.

“Little brother,” she says, her voice sharp and flat. “I heard about that little stunt you pulled two weeks ago. I heard what happened at the theater.”

Now, John turns around.

“‘Private detectives help rescue two missing women just before miracle “angel” descends from the sky,’” she recites. “People said he was surrounded by golden light, flying with dragonfly wings, and wearing a wool cable knit jumper.”

John says nothing.

“Well you’ve gone and done it, haven’t you?” she yells suddenly, slamming the words down onto the old wooden floor – John winces. Harry doesn’t. “Have you even _seen_ the papers, John? The internet? People are _noticing,_ John, _human_ people _._ They’re starting to take a closer look the whole fairy thing, and it’s all because you had to goddamn save some girls’ souls like the heavenly being you are.”

John staggers backwards, falling back against the doorframe. “That’s… _no_. But… no, there’ve been _hundreds_ of stories like these in the papers, no one every believes _those_.”

“Yeah, well, those stories didn’t have half of Scotland Yard backing them up,” she says. “You didn’t think _all_ your police pals would stay quiet, did you?”

“I…” John begins, but he doesn’t know what to say. His stomach is pooling with dread.

“The forums are in an uproar,” Harry says. John recalls her obsession with connecting to other fairies and magically talented people in secret forums over the internet, discussing spells and fairy biology and what the future of their species looks like – of course they’d be going insane over all this. “People have been talking about the Integration for a long time, and now everyone’s wondering if it could be starting soon. No one knew for sure, but it’s not too long before the humans catch on, and now we’re predicting that we’ll be fully integrated in less than twenty years.” She steps forwards and looks into his eyes, as deeply and as penetrating as she can. “ _Twenty years,_ John,” she says, her voice growing quieter. “That’s within our lifetimes. We may live to see it happen. Do you understand what this means?”

Slowly, John nods. _The Integration._ A word synonymous in every non-human’s mind with freedom and equality. People have been talking about it for centuries; when fairies and other non-humans will finally become known to the rest of the world, come out of hiding, and be accepted into society. It’s just an idea, and it is very far from happening, no matter what Harry says. John doubts it will happen even within the next hundred years, if ever. At the moment, however, he says nothing.

Harry stares at him for a moment more, then shakes her head. She sighs – long, and drawn out. “So none of your friends at the Yard have told that it’s you, have they?”

John thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “If they had, I’d know about it by now.”

Harry pauses. “But everyone there knows about you now, don’t they?” she asks. John nods, reluctantly. “And your boyfriend, obviously.”

John doesn’t bother denying it again. “Of course Sherlock knows. He’s known ever since he met me.”

Harry whistles through her teeth. “He’s known about you all along?” she says, her eyebrows going up. “And he doesn’t care?”

“No,” John says firmly. He doesn’t know why, but it feels as though he’s somehow defending Sherlock by saying so. “He doesn’t care if I’m not human or if I can fly or if I’ve got a witch for a sister. He doesn’t care because he’s got no reason to. He knows me as a person and that’s all that matters to him.”

“Not for long,” Harry snaps. Her words ring out in the flat, over the sound of something bubbling in the corner and a few brooms sweeping up the floor. John doesn’t move. “He might feel that way now, but just wait, little brother. Eventually, he’ll get tired of the novelty of it and he _will_ want a human. Humans always do.”

Anger boils in the pit of John’s stomach, along with a sick, queasy feeling. “Dad didn’t,” he says, standing his ground. “He never saw _Mum_ as a _novelty_ , why should Sherlock be any different? What are you even trying to say?”

“I’m trying to say, be careful,” Harry answers. She flicks her hand and the door unlocks, swinging open slowly. As John walks out, she calls after him, “–and be ready.”

John doesn’t answer, and doesn’t turn around. He makes his way down the stairs, clutching the bottle of liquor almost hard enough to break it, and leaves.

•••

“Would you like me better if I was human?”

It echoes around the room. The words are out of John’s mouth before he even knew they had been conceived – pulled from his lips with a will of their own, and now the question is hanging there in the air like a dead moth swinging on a spider web.

Sherlock looks up in surprise. John does, too. They stare at each other for a moment, dragged on and on by the beating of John’s heart. Sherlock furrows his brow.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he answers, and returns to his laptop.

John tilts his head, takes a breath, and purses his lips.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

“It means you’re being ridiculous.”

“Please just answer the question, Sherlock.”

Sherlock peers at him over his laptop. He’s curled up on the couch in his blue nightgown, his hair a mess. He sighs. “John, I do wonder how many times I’m going to have to repeat myself before the message finally gets through. I couldn’t care less if you were human or fairy or something else entirely. Now stop trying to convince yourself otherwise, and please stop asking stupid questions.”

Sherlock looks back down, and John stares at the floor. After a while, he speaks again.

“Would you like me less as a human?” he asks.

“Yes,” Sherlock answers.

John’s mind staggers backward. “I,” he says, unsure of what to follow that with. “I… what?”

Sherlock sighs. “Yes, because if you weren’t a fairy, you wouldn’t have gotten shot while you were in the army, you wouldn’t have been consequently discharged, you wouldn’t have returned to London at the exact time that you did, wouldn’t have come across Mike Stamford at the exact moment that you did, and I never would have met you in the first place. Therefore, I wouldn’t like you at all, seeing as I wouldn’t even know you.” He rolls his eyes and gives John a withering look. “I told you to stop asking stupid questions.”

John freezes, and then smiles, and continues smiling until laughter bubbles up inside him and spills from his grin. He laughs until he has to grab the arms of his chair to steady himself, and when he’s finally done laughing there are tears in his eyes and he looks over at the couch and Sherlock’s staring at him as though he’s gone mad.

“Are you feeling alright?” Sherlock asks, which only sends John off again.

“Bloody perfect,” John giggles, wiping away a tear.

“It’s something Harry said, isn’t it?”

John doesn’t answer. He can hardly breathe.

“She did say something, didn’t she.”

More laughter.

“She told you I’d leave you.”

With that, John stops laughing. He chokes on the air coming up his throat, which is suddenly closing up. He looks over at Sherlock.

Sherlock stares at him, as meaningfully as he can. “John, if I was going to leave you, I’d have done it already,” he says. After a pause, he smiles. “Besides, if I did leave, who would force me to eat and yell at me about the china?”

A long moment of silence, and John falls back into the mirth, Sherlock following after, laughter fogging up the room and drifting out the open window. John clings to the side of his chair – Sherlock sprawls out on the couch, head reeling backwards with guffaws. They laugh until they can’t anymore, until their breathing is shallow and desperate and they both lie there, staring at one another in absurdity and the aftermath of hilarity, letting the tears drip down their cheeks and the smiles remain on their faces. It’s long, wonderfully long, before John remembers something.

“Wait, hold on,” he says, furrowing his brow. “‘Yell at you about the china?’ What the bloody hell did you do to the china?”

Sherlock closes his eyes and turns into the couch, dread piling up in his stomach, but the ghost of the smile remains on his skin.


	14. The Beginning, and Jim

Dinner is nice. Not spectacular, but John doesn’t need spectacular. Sarah orders in from a sandwich shop around the corner and they eat together at her dining room table. They chat about people they’ve seen at the surgery. Sarah doesn’t ask about Sherlock – she probably has a sneaking suspicion that he and John are a bit closer than friends, John imagines – but of course he comes up in conversation every now and then. John can’t help it, really. Sherlock has become such a big part of his life now that he doesn’t really know what else to talk about.  
Sarah mentions the thing with Scotland Yard and the glowing man from a month or so ago (John chokes on his food when she brings it up.) “Were you and Sherlock there when it happened?” she asks. John, who doesn’t want to lie too much, answers, “Yes.” “Do you see it happen, then?” “No.” That’s the end of that.  
After dinner, John helps clean up, and thinks back to the tantrum Sherlock threw earlier that day, which induced him to leave the flat in the first place. God, did he need some air. After a moment’s thought about the state he’s inevitable going to find Sherlock in when he returned, he turns to look at his quasi-girlfriend (proper terms have never really been discussed.)  
“Hey, erm,” he says, walking up to her, “do you mind if I stayed here tonight? I don’t really want to head back to the flat just yet.”   
Sarah gives him a knowing look. “Sherlock?” she asks, and John nods. “Alright. You can have the sofa.”  
“Thanks,” says John, smiling. He puts the last dish away.  
•••  
John didn’t bring pajamas, even though he had thought about the possibility of sleeping here, because that would have been a bit presumptuous. He spreads out the blanket on the sofa and props up his pillow. He stares at the set-up, and thinks.  
Should he try to sleep with his wings bound underneath his jumper, or should he take it off and risk Sarah seeing them? He starts to sit down before his changes his mind and yanks the jumper off, casting it onto a nearby chair – his wings practically sing with relief. The last time he tried to sleep with his wings bound, he’d stayed up all night in agony. John can only go so long with the things pinioned against him before he starts to loose his mind a bit. Besides, Sarah already went off to bed.  
John’s lying down when he realizes that he needs to use the loo. He stands and walks down the hall, stretching out his wings as he goes, sighing a little bit at the freedom and absence of pain. He’s almost to the door when he hears it.  
“John?”  
Bugger, is all he thinks, and he turns. Predictably, Sarah’s standing there, and predictably, she looks a bit shocked.  
John holds in a sigh. He’s not particularly in the mood to go through all this again. “Yes?” he says, trying not to sound exasperated.  
Sarah takes a moment to collect her thoughts. “Okay, you’ve got wings,” she says, pointing at them.  
John nods.  
She thinks again. “Are you a fairy, John?”  
John raises an eyebrow – he wasn’t exactly expecting that. “Yes,” he says, and after a moments thought, adds – “Is that all right?  
Sarah takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Sure. It’s fine, I just… okay.” She turns to walk back, but stops herself. “You know, my, my friend. In college. She was a fairy. That’s how I… anyway.”  
John nods, relaxing. “So you don’t have a problem with it?”  
She shakes her head. “No, of course not. Why would I?”  
John doesn’t have anything to say to that.  
He nods to her, tells her goodnight, and slips into the loo. Once he’s finished, he goes back to the sofa and closes his eyes. It takes him a while to fall asleep – probably because of the unfamiliarity of the place – and when he does finally slip into unconsciousness, he dreams of Baker Street, and of Sherlock. There isn’t much else in his life for him to dream about.  
•••  
John wakes in the slow, painful, groggy way. Light streams through the windows and Sarah’s walking around, already dressed. His back is killing him.  
“Morning,” Sarah says, from the other room.  
“Morning,” he says in return.  
They slip into a few minutes of quips and slightly flirtatious jokes, about which John isn’t sure how he feels. Their relationship was never really defined, although he knows at least some part of him really does fancy her. They’ve never gone any farther than kissing and for the time being, John doesn’t really have a problem with that. He’s not sure where they’re headed, or even where they’ve been.  
After a while, Sarah walks off to take a shower. She leaves the telly on, which John glances at as he stretches. He wonders what sort of a distaster he’s going to find the flat in when he gets home. Hopefully, Sherlock has gotten over his sulk; maybe Lestrade already showed up with a new case. God, that’d be lovely. He stretches out some more, trying to get the kink out of his neck. He slips his jumper on over his head.  
“…Baker Street…”  
John looks up.  
He stares.  
Oh god.   
He watches until he can’t anymore. He stands and makes his way through the living room.  
He says a few words to Sarah as he walks out, his mind racing with uncontrollable panic. He tries texting Sherlock, but he won’t answer.   
Oh my fucking god.  
He won’t answer.  
The tube ride home has never taken so long.  
By the time John runs onto Baker Street, his heart is threatening to burst. His eyes are clouded with panic, but not so much that he can’t see the people, the police tape, and the building across the street from his flat, completely blasted open.  
He hardly thinks as he runs up into 221B. When he sees Sherlock sitting in the not-too-awful wreckage, fully dressed, holding his violin, opposite from Mycroft, he feels an explosion of relief inside him, although he doesn’t show it. He merely remains calm, makes jabs at Mycroft (mostly for Sherlock’s sake) and tries to ignore the fondness filling every crack of his chest.   
He’s safe. For now, at least.  
Good.  
•••  
Molly brings her index finger nail up to her lips and gives it a small nip – a discreet nervous habit she’s developed in the last few years. Jim notices and smirks a little bit in a fond sort of way; he seems to find her nervous ticks endearing, somehow, which Molly doesn’t mind one bit.  
“I, erm,” she says, “I have to help him with. Something.”  
“What sort of thing?” Jim asks, sliding his hands into his pockets. Molly doesn’t find it very attractive when he does that, but she doesn’t show it. She’s starting to get over the thrill of this whole cute-boy-wants-to-date-her thing, anyway, but it might be worth sticking it out a bit longer.  
“Oh, just, things,” she says. And there is always Sherlock, of course. How could she ever have a casual relationship with someone when he’s always showing up, all gorgeous and brilliant and single? “He always needs something or other when he’s on a case. Just assisting with things.”  
“What, so he’s on a case now?” Jim asks. Well, relatively single. Even she can tell how in love Sherlock is with that friend of his, as much as she likes to deny it. Honestly, Sherlock and the doctor’s relationship is doing far better than her own, and they’re not even officially “together.”  
“Something about shoes,” Molly explains. “And a bomb, I think. He doesn’t really tell me a lot of details.”  
Jim tilts his head in curiosity. All right, it is fairly attractive when he does that, she’ll admit. But only fairly. Maybe just enough. “Can I come with? You’ve told me so much about him. I want to meet him.”  
Molly takes a deep breath. On the one hand, having her quasi-boyfriend in the same room with Sherlock Holmes might prove a bit problematic – on the other, this might give her a rare opportunity to show the great Mr. Holmes that she doesn’t depend on him as much as he may like to believe. On the surface, at least. Well, it’s worth a shot.  
They walk to her morgue together, although not touching, and walk in. Sherlock and his friend are there, looking at – she remembered correctly – a pair of trainers. She breathes deep and begins.  
•••  
The door slams shut – quietly – behind her. Molly clenches her fist and turns on him.  
“What do you mean, ‘gay’?” she asks – her voice is shaking a bit too much, whether with anger or disappointment she’s really not sure – “We’re together.”  
“And domestic bliss must suit you, Molly, you’ve put on three pounds since I last saw you,” Sherlock remarks, and Molly’s blood boils as her heart sinks.  
“Two and a half,” she spits. This is just adding insult to injury.  
“Mm. Three.”  
“Sherlock,” Dr. Watson begins, but Molly cuts him off.  
“He’s not gay!” she practically shouts. She’s still shaking. Oh god, each time, each bloody time, she tells herself that she’s done with him, that she’s not going to take this from him anymore – and each time she forgets and falls for it and falls for him and why can’t she just be done with all this? “Why’d you have to spoil–? He’s not.”  
Sherlock scoffs (to her further fury). “With that level of personal grooming?”  
“Because he puts a bit of product in his hair?” Doctor Watson interrupts incredulously – Molly thanks silently thanks him. “I put product in my hair.”  
“You wash your hair. There’s a difference. No, no. Tinted eyelashes. Clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines, those tired, clubber’s eyes. Then there’s his underwear.”  
Oh my god. Molly’s heart leaps into her throat and her face begins to heat. Surely, surely Sherlock isn’t going to start making bloody deductions based off of her quasi-boyfriends underwear? And she thought this couldn’t get any more humiliating. “His underwear?”  
“Visible above the waistline,” Sherlock remarks, quick, as always. “Very visible. Very particular brand. That plus the extremely suggestive fact that he just left his number under this dish here,” –he lifts up the dish to show her; Oh god no– “and I’d say you’d better break it off now and save yourself the pain.”  
Utter silence.  
Everything in Molly’s bones is screaming for her to simply run from the room. She wishes in this moment more than anything that she could simply disappear, could fade away from existence, never have to face this infuriating man again.  
Something keeps her in place.  
Maybe, she wonders later, it was the memory of her involvement in the Mason and Hamilton case, the one time she had something that Sherlock didn’t, the one time Sherlock needed her. Whatever it is, she stands her ground – although her insides are begging her to flee – and stares that god-awful man straight in the face.  
“I don’t care what you think he is,” she says. Her voice shakes just a bit more than she would like it too. “I don’t… I don’t care. He wouldn’t lie to me like that, he just wouldn’t.”  
To her infuriation, Sherlock sighs a drawn out sigh and looks back at her with that oh-you-idiot expression she sees so often. “Then I suppose he’s told you that he’s a fairy as well, has he?”  
For the second time, quite utter silence.  
Molly takes what slightly resembles a deep breath. “I’m sorry?”  
Sherlock takes a deep breath – preparing to launch into deductions again. “He was wearing a thin t-shirt, but several layers of clothing underneath, including Ace bandages, obviously binding something. He’s obviously cisgender, so it can’t have been breasts, which leaves one other possibility. The way he held himself, with his back arched – careful not to hunch forward at all, in case anything might stick out. Also, the way he walks – as if he weighs around half as much as a normal human being, just as John does.” – Molly sees John shift uncomfortably in her peripheral vision – “Finally, the suggestive fact that he’s wearing contacts and does need them, as seems to be a pattern. Like I said, he doesn’t seem to be very honest with you, Molly, and I’m sure there are quite a few more things he isn’t telling you. I’d quit now.”  
The world is spinning with anger and hurt and confusion. She needs some air – she needs to get out of this room. She opens her mouth to say something, but her mind is going in too many directions at once to form coherent words, so she does just what her gut has been pulling her to do: she flees.  
•••  
John sighs and crosses his arms. “Charming. Well done.”  
Sherlock looks up at him – real, honest confusion is written across his face. “Just saving her time. Isn’t that kinder?”  
“Kinder?” Mother of god. Sometimes, John honestly cannot believe this bloody man. “No. No, Sherlock. That wasn’t kind.”  
Sherlock says nothing, and looks back at the trainers. John looks at the floor. After a moment, he speaks.  
“You were able to deduce that he’s a fairy,” he remarks.  
Sherlock peers up at him. “Yes,” he responds.  
John pauses. “You’ve been observing me,” he says.  
Sherlock looks away, and says nothing.  
“You knew,” John continues, thinking, “that I weigh half as much as a human. How did you know that?”  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Not that difficult to observe, John.”  
“How much do I weigh?” John asks. Challenging him, to a degree.  
Sherlock looks up at him, surprised. He narrows his eyes. “Somewhere around ninety, one hundred pounds?”  
“Eighty.”  
“Close. How does that work?”  
“Hollow bones,” John replies. “I’m not sure what else. I have to be lighter in order to fly.”  
“Mm.”  
“Why do you care, exactly?”  
“You know everything there is to know about my anatomy,” Sherlock replies, looking back down at the trainers. “You know exactly how I work. You understand my body. I am taking it upon myself to understand yours.”  
John furrows his brow and stares. He wasn’t really sure what he expected Sherlock to say. “That’s, er…” he mumbles, “oddly touching.”  
“Is it?”  
“Coming from you, yes, it is.”  
The man pauses, and then the barest hints of a Sherlockian grin flit across his lips. John feels something tugging in his chest at the sight, and attempts to ignore it. For the first time, he fails.  
Sherlock starts going off about the trainers again. Something about vintage models or shoelaces or eczema or… something. John doesn’t really care at the moment. He’s sure that it will all come back to him in a while, when they’re off chasing a bomber somewhere and trying not to get shot, and he’ll feel the adrenaline rushing through his veins and clicking his brain back into gear, but for now… for now, he’s puzzling over the warm twinges that squeeze his lungs every time Sherlock’s face catches the light just so, and wondering why it feels so lovely.


	15. The Man Behind the Curtain

It had been raining when she’d said it. Jim had let her bring it up – there was no need to push or prompt her when it came to thinking about Sherlock Holmes. That much was painfully obvious.

“I’ve got to go downstairs,” she’d responded, when he’d asked her if she might join him for some coffee in the café. “Erm. I’ve got to help a friend of mine.”

Instantly, the game plan of the conversation mapped itself out in Jim’s mind – he knew exactly how this conversation would play out, and he knew how to use it to his advantage. “A friend?” he asked. “What’s her name?”

To his amusement, a slight tint of red had appeared on her cheeks. “I. Um. He’s… he’s a man, actually, he…” She coughed. “His name is Sherlock Holmes. He comes here a lot.”

He had shifted his weight just then, from one foot to the other. “Well, er… he’s not competition, is he? I shouldn’t be worried about him?”

To his further amusement, her face – and neck – flushed a delightful shade of fuchsia. “No! No… er, no,” she coughed. “We’re, ah… we’re just friends.” Heartbeat elevated. Mixture of embarrassment and arousal. Predictable. Dull. “Besides, he’s taken.”

Well, this is new.

“Oh, that’s… alright, good, then,” he’d said. Of course, his mind was already zeroing in on the person she must have been talking about, but as always, he played along. “So, er… does his girlfriend work here? Is that why he’s here a lot?”

More blushing, and something else. He’d let his eyes sweep over her and saw her thoughts written out on her skin as clear as black ink on ivory paper. _You’ve seen something with your golden eyes, haven’t you? And you want to tell someone about it. So tell me._

She’d cleared her throat. “He’s, um… he’s got a boyfriend. His partner, Doctor something. They live together. They’re detectives.”

Inwardly, he’d been grinning and laughing a bit to himself. Outwardly, he’d said something bland – like, “Oh,” – because he’d seen and heard all he needed to know.

 _You’re lying to me, Molly Hooper._ He’d watched her as she walked down the hallway and down the stairs. _They’re not really together, are they? No, but you know better. You can see what no one else can._

He’d smiled, pulled out his phone, and composed a text:

_Sebby darling – new plan. Molly Hooper isn’t as dear to him as we thought. Set your sights on John Watson instead._

With steady fingers, he’d hit “send,” and walked away, humming.

•••

The flat is shrouded in silence.

John coughs and shifts his weight. His laptop is flipped open on his lap, but the screen is blank. He’s checked his email and his blog, and he’s waiting until this case is finished before he writes about it, and there’s nothing else he can think of to do. He tried reading, but it was impossible to focus.

He looks over at Sherlock.

The detective’s eyes are closed. His hands are in the Posh Thinking Pose, legs crossed on his usual chair. He’s as still as a statue.

John eyes the pink phone perched atop the chair’s arm – cautiously, as if it might explode. “Nothing yet?” he asks.

Sherlock doesn’t respond.

John looks down at his blank screen for a moment, then flips the laptop shut and places it on the coffee table. He stands and starts putting on his windbreaker (brand new, bought on sale, and a little warmer than the last one.).

“I’m going out,” he says.

“Mm,” Sherlock responds.

John takes out his phone and sends a text – _Sarah, mind if I come over for a bit?_

The response comes seconds later. _No problem. I’m making pasta, you can stay for dinner._

He nods to himself and puts the phone back in his pocket. “I’m going to Sarah’s,” he repeats.

No response.

John pauses for a moment, then makes his way out of the flat. The chill outside the front door hits him, hard. He wraps the stupid thing around him, thinks about the wool coat from Sherlock that’s been preserved neatly in the back of his closet for months, and steps forward onto the sidewalk.

A cab pulls up beside him.

He doesn’t notice. He keeps walking.

“Oy!”

He turns his head, but keeps walking.

“Oy, you! Mate! OY!”

John stops, and turns.

A man in the cab is leaning out and looking at him. He looks scruffy, undershaven, dirty. He’s wearing plain, worn-out clothes. He looks up at John under a thick brow.

“Need a lift?” he shouts.

Something about all this doesn’t sit right in John’s stomach, but he pushes the feeling away. “No thanks, I’m taking the Tube.”

“I’m not asking you,” says the cab driver. His voice is rough and direct. “I’m telling you.”

That’s when John notices the gun.

•••

His head is throbbing and everything in the world is a fuzzy shade of gray, and the first thing he thinks is: _What did Sherlock do this time?_ After a moment, he remembers the gun and the cab and the whack on the head, and his vision starts to clear.

John shifts his weight, and freezes.

There’s something… _on_ him.

His vision is still blurry, but he looks down. He’s lying sideways on the ground, propped up on his elbow, and he can almost make out some different colored shapes on his chest. Something’s constricting his wings behind him and wrapping around his torso; there are some tiny red lights placed around his middle, but he can’t –

He’s covered in Semtex.

He’s wearing a bomb.

The mixture of fear and calm resolve kicks in as he holds his breath, just as something starts to crackle in his ear. He brings his hand up to feel it – an earpiece.

“Doctor Watson,” says a voice, cheerfully, from the other end of the line. There’s a slight pause; John’s heard that voice before. “You know the drill.”

John heaves a breath and staggers to his feet, head still pounding. He feels underneath the enormous parka, hands running over the corners and edges and wiring of enough explosives to take out a building. The voice in his ear continues.

“You see that door up ahead?” the voice asks. John looks in front of him – a few feet away is a blue swinging door with a small window slit. He nods, although he doesn’t know if anyone’s watching him. “In a moment, you’re going to go through there, onto a pool deck. I’ll be whispering sweet nothings into your ear, and you will repeat everything I say, or you’ll never be writing in that blog of yours again.”

John closes his eyes and holds his breath. His heart is beating loudly in his chest – that traitorous organ. He nods.

“This relationship is off to an excellent start. Now go to the door.”

John straitens himself as much as he can, putting his hands in his pockets, and walks towards the door.

“When you get out there,” the voice says as John presses his hand against the metal, “repeat after me: Evening. This is a turn-up, isn’t it, Sherlock?”

John can feel his heart freeze in his chest. _Oh god. Sherlock’s out there._ Even at the moment, he can hear Sherlock’s voice coming, muffled, through the door, although he can’t make out the words. John peers through the window – looks like a pool deck. _Sherlock, you idiot. You’re going to die. This maniac strapped me in Semtex and you have no idea and now we’re both going to die._

“Go,” says the voice through the earpiece. John walks through the door.

The air smells sharply of chlorine. He keeps his hands clenched in fists in his pockets. His wings are screaming with the weight of the bomb holding them in. He takes a step, and then another, until he turns and there’s Sherlock, right there, looking at him, and he opens his mouth.

“Evening,” he says. His heart is thunderous in his ears, but on the outside, he’s calm and collected, giving nothing away. Sherlock stares at him, and John’s starting to understand why he’s being made to say these things: to Sherlock, it must seem like he, John Watson, _is_ the bomber. _Oh god_. “This is a turn-up, isn’t it, Sherlock?”

The look on Sherlock’s face nearly breaks his heart. For a moment, he can see that the man believes, really believes, that he’s been betrayed, that John had lied to him, and in all the months he’s known the man he has never seen such a vulnerable and pained expression on that face. “John…” Sherlock almost mutters, breathless, staggering. “What the hell?”

“Bet you never saw this coming,” whispers the voice in his ear.

“Bet… you never… saw this coming,” John repeats, again with his deadpan face.

The bomber voices the next sentence, and John breathes out in relief. He can’t take the tortured look on Sherlock’s face anymore.

“What…” he says, shifting his hands, “…would you like me to make him say…” he parts the flaps of the jacket, revealing the bomb around him, “…next?”

A confused mixture of relief and concern flit over Sherlock’s face in the split second it takes him to form his usual deadpan. The earpiece game of copycat continues for a while, and John’s pulse grows louder and louder. The man on the other end is a lunatic – more importantly, however, John’s figured out where he’s heard that voice before by now.

“…I can stop John Watson, too,” he repeats. He hears the next line and swallows. “Stop his heart.”

“Who are you?” Sherlock asks, looking around the pool.

And that’s when the voice comes, reverberating around them, high pitched and by far the most terrifying thing John’s ever heard.

“Gave you my number,” it says. “Thought you might call.”

Jim from IT steps out of the shadows.

•••

Sherlock can feel his heart beating in his throat. He chooses to ignore it.

Moriarty is finishing up his speech. John is still standing with the bomb wrapped around him, which is, obviously, far more important. “So take this as a friendly warning, my dear,” Moriarty sneers – looking back, Sherlock wonders if this is the very moment he started loathing the man – “… _back off._ Although… I have loved this.”

Sherlock spares a split-second glance over at John, who’s staring right at him. Predictably, there’s next to no expression showing on his face – expected from an experienced army man, of course. The bomb seems heavy on his shoulders. Sherlock’s insides give a small heave.

“This little game of ours,” Moriarty continues, unfazed. “Playing Jim from IT. Playing gay. Did you like the little touch with the underwear?”

Sherlock says nothing. He doesn’t want to give Moriarty that satisfaction.

“But not just playing _gay_ , no, that would be boring,” Moriarty continues, scrunching up his eyes and staring off into space in mock contemplation. “You’ve figured it out by now, haven’t you, Sherlock? Care to tell the class?”

Sherlock grits his teeth. Moriarty’s pulling at his strings here, trying to irritate him – best to just say it.

“You’re not a fairy,” he says evenly, flicking his eyes over Moriarty’s body once more to make sure his deductions are correct. “Good job faking it, though.”

“Ah, well,” Moriarty says, shrugging. “Not too hard to fool someone as obsessed with fairies as you are. Or, rather… one fairy in particular.”

He glances over at John, just a quick, unimpressed, how-pathetic sort of glance, and then it’s back at Sherlock.

“But really though… did you like the part where I faked my own weight?” he said, smirking.

“People have died.”

“That’s what people DO!”

The scream echoes around the pool, and time slows. Sherlock can see exactly what’s going to happen in the next few minutes, mapped out in his mind – John grabbing Moriarty, trying to let Sherlock escape; Moriarty’s gunmen, who are inevitably hiding in the upper decks, training their snipers on the two of them; and, also inevitably, their own death. The guns will shoot Sherlock and John down, or Sherlock will pull his own trigger and send the bomb and the building up – either way, he knows that he’s going to die within the next few minutes. And that’s all right. He always knew he’d die young.

What isn’t all right is that John’s going to die as well.

Sherlock swallows and shows nothing on his face. “I will stop you,” he says coolly.

“No you won’t,” Moriarty responds, shaking his head.

Brain racing at previously unfathomable speeds, Sherlock is plotting out every possibly scenario where John survives. Each idea is a failure and ends in his death – there is simply no way around it. Sherlock’s brain locks into denial, and he looks at John.

“You all right?” he says.

John says nothing.

“You can talk, Johnny boy,” Moriarty tells him from behind. “Go ahead.”

John says nothing.

Sherlock holds out the memory stick. Mycroft will be beyond furious, obviously, and he may just have sent the entire world into a nuclear war, but none of that matters if John comes out of this pool alive. “Take it,” he says.

“Hm? Oh, that.” Moriarty plucks it from his fingers. “The missile plans.” He kisses it, waits a moment, and then – to Sherlock’s dismay – tosses it into the pool. “Boring! Could have got them anywhere.”

John takes the moment to run up behind Moriarty and tackle him him, wrapping his arms around his neck in a choke hold.

“Sherlock, run!” he yells, and the noise echoes around the room and Sherlock’s mind.

Even though Sherlock knew he would do this, of course, and the red spots light up their foreheads and backs and necks – just as he knew they would – and John eventually backs off, his heroic actions for naught – even though he saw it coming and none of it mattered, Sherlock’s insides shift. He’s felt this before, many times, when a little smile or laugh or something purely John made his gut squeeze or his lungs contract a bit quicker… but this is different. Sherlock watches John step backwards, putting his arms in the air, scared more for Sherlock’s life than his own – and Sherlock’s heart _wrenches_.

It slams to the side of his chest and twists, sending fuzzy spirals up to his brain that momentarily swirl in front of his eyes. From an objecting viewpoint, he’s under threat of imminent death and shouldn’t be devoting much thought to matters of the emotional sort, and now really isn’t the best time to be having this sort of revelation, but fear and panic and a hint of desperation have stripped away all of Sherlock’s internal defenses and John is there and looking at him and Sherlock loves him more than he can possibly justify.

The nature of this love he can’t, nor does he have a desire to, put a finger on – doesn’t seem that important at the moment – but if he knows one thing above anything else, it is that John Watson is going to walk away from this alive because he is the first friend Sherlock’s ever had and the only one he’ll ever need and Sherlock loves him too much to let him die today.

Sherlock quenches the beating of his heart and fine-tunes his mind back into the moment. His mental ponderings only took the space of a fraction of a second, and he stuffs them back into his mind palace for the time being. Right now, he must deal with the matter at hand.

The next few minutes progress just as he expected them to – except an unexpected phone call occurs, and in less than a quarter of an hour, he and John are in a cab home, shaken and in complete silence, and very much alive.


	16. Intent To Kill

John looks up from his newspaper one day with the sudden realization that he’s the happiest he’s ever been in his life, and he hadn’t even noticed until that point.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t ever noticed being _happy_ , but just that the fact hadn’t completely clicked in his mind that he was precisely where he wanted to be, for the first time he could ever remember. Each morning when he awoke, instead of the normal emptiness that had been waiting to receive his conscious mind, he was greeted by a strange feeling of content – entirely unfamiliar, and completely welcome.

John thinks about this for a moment, laughs a bit to himself, and returns to the paper.

“Wouldn’t think anything in there would be the type of news to induce laughter,” Sherlock remarks from where he sits on the couch, fiddling with something or other. John doesn’t really care, as long as it’s not his gun or cigarettes.

“It’s nothing,” John says, letting a smile slip from his lips. Sherlock, between cases and with absolutely nothing to occupy his already over-acute mind, notices. Of course he does.

“Something on your mind?” he asks, returning his gaze to whatever’s in his hands. He smirks a bit, the cheeky bastard.

“It’s _nothing,_ ” John repeats – he grins back a bit. He’s gotten used to this, these comfortable, half-conversations, spoken partly in words and partly in things equally understood by the both of them, hanging in the silence between their bodies. “Just… I’m feeling… really happy.”

Sherlock looks up, slowly. To John’s surprise, his face is serious and contemplative. “Happy?” he repeats. “Why?”

John opens his mouth, but can’t think of what to say. _Because I’m right where I’m supposed to be. Because I’ve been wandering through the world completely empty for years and suddenly I stumble right into the life I’ve wanted all along without knowing it. Because I never knew that I needed you, but here you are and now I can’t imagine living a single day without you in it._ He coughs and looks back at his paper. “I, erm. I dunno. Do I need a reason?”

Sherlock flicks his eyes up and down John’s figure, hunched over the breakfast table, as if trying to find the answer to John’s rhetorical question hidden in the folds of his jumper, or the reflections in his wings. He looks upwards, examining John’s face – slowing the movement of his retinas until his eyes are locked with John’s. He freezes; they look at one another.

The moment passes by. The eye contact doesn’t break. John is frozen in space, his newspaper suspended just more than an inch above the table, and he can’t look away. He doesn’t know why, exactly, but in this moment there’s something writhing in the air between them – held captive for the moment by the meeting of their eyes – and it’s _choking_ , almost palpable, and it’s something understood but unsaid that John isn’t sure he’s ready to address just now, or ever, or even recognize the existence of, and he’s growing a bit more nervous with each passing second that neither of them look away. He heard somewhere once that maintaining eye contact for over six seconds meant either a desire for sex or murder – he can’t imagine that he really wants either one, but the time they’ve spent looking at one another is now reaching nearly five seconds and it’s getting a bit terrifying.

Sherlock blinks, and they both look away. The moment passes, like it always does. Nothing is said, and John tries not to think about it.

The silence the room lapses into is almost comfortable, and the dense feeling of things unsaid and unthought lingers in the air for some time, until John walks into the kitchen to make himself some tea. By the time he gets back, Sherlock staring at his phone, a smile quirking his absurd cupid’s bow of a mouth.

“What are you so smug about?” John asks, setting Sherlock’s steaming mug down in front of him.

Sherlock grins wider. “Lestrade texted me about a new case. Looks like I won’t be bored after all.”

Sherlock launches himself off the couch and starts speed walking towards his room, nightgown flapping behind him. John, caught off guard by the sudden movement, flicks his wings a bit to catch up and flies alongside him.

“What sort of case?” he asks, following Sherlock into his bedroom and landing just inside the door.

“Serial murder,” Sherlock answers, grinning, as he whips off his nightgown. “three already dead, seemingly unconnected in any way, except that there’s no evident cause of death. Oh, it really is Christmas.”

“Yeah, okay, don’t act _too_ excited once we get there,” John says. “People tend to find it sort of… off-putting when you’re prancing around crime scenes like a bloody kid in a candy shop.”

“I don’t _prance_ ,” Sherlock says, pulling off his shirt and throwing it at John’s head.

 John catches it, folds it neatly, and puts it on Sherlock’s bed. “You sort of do.”

Sherlock’s pulling on his crisp white button-up, about to open his mouth to retort, when his phone vibrates on the bedcovers. He pauses a moment, reaches down to read the new text, and looks up at John – face solemn.

John wrinkles his brow. “What? What is it?”

Sherlock looks down to read the text again, and clears his throat. “Lestrade says that he forgot to mention that there _is_ another connection between all the victims,” Sherlock tells him. He turns around the phone to show John the message.

John reads it, and looks up at his friend. He can feel a tingle starting to creep up from the base of his spine – and not the good kind.

_This isn’t going to turn out well._

•••

“Fairies,” Lestrade repeats, with a nod of his head to the body lying on the floor. “This is the fourth so far, and they’re all fairies. There doesn’t seem to be any cause of death, although there are signs of physical trauma, and some bruises – it’s as if they all just suddenly died. None of them have got poor medical records on file; they were all perfectly healthy.”

Sherlock kneels down to have a look at the body at his feet. The eyes are still open, which always puts John on edge, and limbs are splayed everywhere. There’s a few bruises on his head, but they’re light, not nearly bad enough to cause even unconsciousness, much less death.

Carefully, Sherlock tilts the body sideways and this way and that way, taking in everything that he can. “And the other bodies, you’ve run the diagnostics?”

“Of course,” Lestrade nods. “Nothing. No poisons, chemicals, bacteria, physical injuries, nothing. The guys at St. Bart’s are completely stumped.”

Sherlock nods and pushes the body further to the side, sliding his hand underneath and feeling the corpses back. He pauses, feels again, and carefully turns the body over completely. John’s breathing hitches.

“Where’s his other wing?” Sherlock asks. Lestrade opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Where is it?” Sherlock repeats. He looks up at the two of them. “He’s only got one wing.”

“I don’t know, I…” Lestrade thinks for a moment. “That’s how he was when we found him.”

Sherlock slips his hand inside the slit in the corpse’s shirt and feels around the space where his second wing should be. He pulls his hand out. “It’s been cut off,” he says slowly. “Switchblade, probably. The victim was struggling, which would account for the jagged edges of the cut.”

“Hold on,” Lestrade breathes. He places a hand on his forehead. “The other victims were like this, too… Well, sort of anyway. They all hand mangled-up wings, looked like knife work. I didn’t think that was too important, but…”

“Holy _shit_ ,” John says suddenly, from where he’s been standing. Both heads turn over to him – he’s stock still, hands clenched into pink-knuckled fists, sickly pale. “My god _._ ”

“John?” Sherlock stands and walks over to him, looking him straight in the eye. “What? What is it?”

John swallows and shakes his head. “Well. At least now we know the cause of death.”

“What?” Lestrade rounds on him. “What do you mean?”

“I…” John stutters. He collects his breath. Memories are already flooding back into his mind and it seems like too much to keep them out and attempt to speak at the same time. “It’s… deadly. What I mean is… any wound to the wings is fatal. They would have been dead within five minutes of being attacked.”

“Fatal?” Sherlock repeats almost immediately. He looks as though is brain is racing, trying to catalogue things – John knows that look well.

John nods. “Everyone’s got a center of energy, see. Humans have it in their hearts – which is why any wound to the heart is almost definitely deadly. And we have it in our wings. The core of everything that keeps us alive is stored in our wings; so any cut or wound to them, even if it’s just a little gash, will kill you.”

Lestrade’s nodding to himself, acting as though he’s taking in the new information calmly and collectedly, which he obviously isn’t. Sherlock, however, is staring intently at John, with an unreadable expression on his face – an expression that John can’t identify, but that he recognizes.

Sherlock looked at him that same way back at the pool, when he was covered in Semtex.

“That doesn’t make sense, though,” Lestrade says after a moment. “They look so… I mean, they seem so… _delicate._ Wouldn’t you have to be careful not to, I don’t know, rub against a wall or something?”

“They’re not actually that delicate,” John says, trying not to roll his eyes. He understands that his friends know nothing about what it’s like to be a fairy, not having grown up as one, but it does get a bit tedious: having to explain the basic functions of your body to everyone you know, over and over again. “The chitin our wings are made out of is stronger than Kevlar – they’re bulletproof. It’s _really hard_ to cut through someone’s wings. You can’t just do it on accident.”

“Okay…” Lestrade says, creasing his eyebrows and looking down at the body. “So someone purposefully cut up all these people’s wings?”

“He must have really hated them,” John mutters.

Sherlock glances over at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, Sherlock, that dying of a chitin wound is literally the most painful death a person can have,” John snaps. He knows he shouldn’t be snapping at anyone – it isn’t Sherlock’s fault all these memories are clenching at his gut and shoving his breakfast back up his throat – but he can’t really help it. “I already told you that fairies are a more emotionally based species. What that means is that we’re more dependent on our centers of energy to survive. Pierce a human heart, and they might still live, but wound a fairy’s wings and they _collapse_ from the inside. Every bad feeling you’ve ever had – pain, anger, sadness, panic, guilt – every bad memory, every regret, it all consumes you from the inside out until you lose the will to live.” John stares down at the corpse at his feet. “The only way to cut through fairy chitin is if you hate that person enough to want them dead. It’s a magical defense mechanism. It’s why our wings are so strong, why they can’t be cut on accident – the only way to cut through them is with hatred and intent to kill.”

Lestrade stares at him, silenced. He doesn’t seem to know how to respond. Sherlock’s also silent, but for a different reason. John knows that look well – Sherlock’s deep within his mind palace, cataloguing bits of information at the fasted speed that neurons can possibly fire.

John clears his throat, intent on being useful in some respect. “So what this tells us,” he says, snapping Sherlock out of his mind-daze, “is that the murderer had some sort of personal vendetta with all of them. He had to have known them personally.”

Lestrade shakes himself out of his daze. “So what do we do, then?”

“Obvious,” Sherlock says suddenly, making John jump a bit. “Look at all of their personal connections, their friends, family, coworkers, anyone – see if they all have one person in common.”

“All right,” Lestrade says, nodding. He nods to one of his officers standing in the doorway, who walks off, talking into his radio.

“Meanwhile,” Sherlock continues, stepping around the body in a swift stride – “Rochester was found by his landlady, who said she came by at six in the morning to check in on him; the last person who saw him alive was his girlfriend,” – who they had spoken to downstairs – “who came around last night for dinner but didn’t stay over. Judging by the dried food left on the plates in the kitchen sink and the arrangement of the duvet on his bed, she can’t have stayed later than eleven o’clock. The victim was a very organized man, probably had a very organized night time routine – judging by the hygienic products in his bathroom – which would have taken another… half hour or so. Rochester was killed in the six and a half hour period between eleven thirty pm and six am.”

“So the attacker killed him in his sleep?” John asks.

“Tried to. Look at the bruises on Rochester’s arms, knee, and forehead, and the scuff marks on his floor – he put up a fight. The killer was going to kill him asleep, but Rochester, being an insomniac, was lying awake.”

“An insomniac?”

“Obviously.” Sherlock points at the CD cases lying in piles around the small stereo on Rochester’s bedside table. “Meditative tracks and relaxation CD’s. Could be used for stress relieving, but the melatonin jar in the bathroom says insomnia. The empty melatonin cases in the waste bin tell us that he’s had this problem for a long time – therefore, chronic insomniac.”

“So what’s this got to do with anything?” Lestrade asks.

“Everything,” Sherlock answers, grinning. “Insomniacs _love_ to talk about their insomnia. Even if they don’t, everyone can tell – they’re tired all the time. Anyone who had regular contact with Rochester would have known that he didn’t get enough sleep. If you’d wanted him dead, it would have been more convenient to off him in one of the numerous dark alleyways he walks to on the way to work, and dispose of the body there. Instead, the killer broke into his house in the middle of the night and left his body lying right on his floor.”

“So?” Lestrade urges.

“So either the murderer didn’t know Rochester well enough to know about his insomnia, or he wanted the body to be found,” Sherlock answers. “Possibly both. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve seen enough here. Come on, John.”

John nods to Lestrade and follows Sherlock out the door. Sherlock’s acting a bit strange – he doesn’t usually leave crime scenes this quickly. More to the point, he looks distracted and put-off, and John doesn’t like it at all.

They walk out of the building and wait for a cab to show up, and John can’t help noticing that Sherlock’s standing a little closer to him than usual. John doesn’t mind, and doesn’t say anything about it.

•••

Sherlock’s mind is racing nearly as fast as his pulse. He stares across to the other side of the cab at John, sitting there, looking absentmindedly out the window. John doesn’t notice.

As soon as they get home, Sherlock’s going to learn everything he possibly can about this whole wing issue. Some intensive internet filtering should do the trick. Why did John never tell him about this before? If he had, Sherlock could’ve done research already, he could’ve learned how to protect him by now…

He takes a deep breath and lets it out, closing his eyes as he does so. John hears the outtake of air and looks over.

“You all right?” he asks.

 _Infuriating,_ Sherlock thinks to himself. Infuriating that John can always read his mind, that John always knows when he’s okay and when he’s not. Most of all, infuriating that Sherlock finds himself enjoying it – finds himself feeling that awful little twist in his chest whenever John can tell what he’s thinking. Infuriating.

“I’m fine,” he answers, and they both know that he’s lying. But John wouldn’t understand – John the soldier, John the war hero, John who would sacrifice his life for complete strangers because that’s just the kind of infuriating person he is. John, who doesn’t comprehend why he can’t possibly be put in harm’s way because he can’t possibly be hurt, who doesn’t understand that his own life is far more important than Sherlock’s. How can’t he understand something that Sherlock finds so _painfully_ obvious?

Sherlock stares at him in the silence of the stopped cab – or near silence, thanks to the excess noise leaking in from outside. He’s overcome with the urge to grab John and pull him closer, to cover that empty space between them with a stretch of his arm and hold John close to him – close, where he’d be safe, where Sherlock would never let anyone lay a finger on him, where he could sit and stay for a while and just breathe into Sherlock’s shoulder, and wrap his arms around Sherlock’s waist…

Sherlock doesn’t do anything. He never does, and he’s too afraid to start now. He turns his head and looks out the window and tries not to think about John covered in Semtex.

When they’re out of the cab, John walks up behind him and lays a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he says.

Sherlock pauses for a moment, taking in the blissful pressure of the fingers on his coat, and walks forward, shaking it off.

“ _Hey_ ,” John says again, running up and forcefully turning Sherlock around to look him in the eye. Sherlock doesn’t resist this time.

“I know what you’re thinking,” John says. “And I’m telling you not to worry. I’m fine, and I’ll be fine.”

Sherlock waits the longest time before nodding. They walk into the flat together, and neither of them mentions the fact that they’re just a bit to close to each other. They don’t need to.

They’re both well aware of it.


	17. A Contrast of Faces

The splattering of blood across the linoleum floor isn’t really helping John’s current state of anxiety.

Molly reaches out and gingerly zips up the body bag containing Rochester and moves onto the one beside it. “This one’s a bit different,” she says. “She isn’t missing an entire wing, like that one, she’s… well, you’ll see.”

John can feel the bases of his wings clench underneath his jumper. Despite the cool temperature of Molly’s lab, he reaches up to wipe a sheen of sweat off his forehead. As she unzips the next victim’s bag (a woman, brunette, barely over twenty, pockmarked with acne scars) John feels a bit too sickly hot for comfort. He peels off his jumper, leaving his plaid button-up underneath and his wings swinging back and forth in the breezeless room.

Molly takes a moment to stare in shocked wonder before peeling the rest of the bag away from the body and turning it over. John clenches his fists in an irregular rhythm (open clench open clench _clench_ open) and prepares himself.

The corpse’s wings lie against the tabletop, and John was not prepared.

“All the other wounds look like knife work,” Molly explains. “But this one looks like it’s–”

“–bullet holes,” Sherlock finishes calmly. He peers closer. “Small, army handgun – possibly the same as John’s.”

John is too distracted to tell Sherlock that he maybe shouldn’t be so careless when talking about his illegal firearms. He feels sick and dizzy and exposed. Heats and chills run over his skin – he wonders briefly if he’s going to vomit.

“There’s no wounds anywhere else on her,” Molly tells Sherlock, in an attempt to be helpful.

“We’ve already established that the murderer was aiming for the wings,” Sherlock mutters. “He must have been a crack shot. Especially since… look, here.” He pointed. “You can tell by the angle and location of the holes that the wings were moving very quickly when they were hit. He must have shot her while she was flying.”

John doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore. Sherlock’s usually comforting voice has been drowned out by the sound of gunfire, the sound of wind whipping past his ears (and not in the good way), the sound of screaming – possibly his own – the sound of yelling and running and pleading, all rising back in a sickening wave from the darkest parts of his memory. He shuts his eyes, only to find the dark behind his eyelids flooded with bright Afghan light and images of the sky rushing away from him as he fell and all the blood – god, there had been a lot of it, hadn’t there…?

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock repeats, louder this time. John snaps his eyes open and finds himself face to face with his best friend, looking far too concerned.

“I’m fine,” John mutters, rubbing his face. Sherlock rolls his eyes in response.

“You’re obviously not,” the detective continues, looking around them as if searching for an answer. “You’ve been acting strangely ever since we discovered the chitin wounds on the first victim. You’re obviously very traumatized by it and are suffering from some sort of unwanted memory–”

Sherlock stops abruptly.

He looks at the woman on the table.

He looks back at John.

John clenches his eyes shut for a moment, then opens them. “Connect the dots yet?” he asks, more harshly than he should have.

“John…” Sherlock pleads, almost helplessly. He looks at John’s wings, his eyes asking a question. John decides it’s time he answered it.

“You already know I was shot,” John mutters. He feels helpless and he hates it. “But I wasn’t just shot in my shoulder.”

Sherlock seems speechless for a moment. “You said that all chitin wounds are lethal,” he says. He raises an eyebrow, only managing to look more concerned than he had before.

John takes a moment to peer around Sherlock’s shoulder. Molly has apparently figured out that she’s no longer wanted in the room and has inched quietly out the door, leaving the two of them perfectly and terribly alone.

“Not always lethal,” John mumbles in response. “The wounds can be treated – but rarely, and it’s difficult and painful.”

“How?” The word is out of Sherlock’s mouth immediately, without a moment’s hesitation. John stares at him, at his face, at the mixture of anxiety and panic and absurd protectiveness that’s knitted into his normally calm features. John feels his ribcage squeeze painfully – he remembers one other time in the past that someone looked at him with that very face ­–

_“How?” the man screamed at him desperately. The sun was hot, far too bright (a light at the end of a tunnel?) John was nearly too weak to reply… lying in a pool of his own blood… tipping over the verge of death…_

John chokes back the constricting of his throat.

“I don’t… I don’t want to talk about it just now,” he manages.

“ _John_. It could be important to the case,” Sherlock insists. John can instantly hear the deeper layers of meaning beneath this sentence. “If we know how to cure them… we could save any further victims, we could…”

“I’m _not ready_ , Sherlock,” John snaps. Apparently, that’s all Sherlock needs to hear, because he turns on his heel and starts walking towards the door.

“I’ve seen all I need to see here,” he throws over his shoulder. “Molly can clean up. We should head home.”

John nods weakly (gratefully) and follows.

Not minutes later, they’re seated comfortably in a cab. John’s hands are set tightly in their rhythm: open, clench, open, clench, open. Sherlock looks over at him.

“You’ve barely eaten all day,” he remarks, obviously trying to make John feel better by showing some level of insight into his physical wellbeing – it doesn’t work, although John appreciates the effort. “I could pick up something for you if you’d like. I might even stoop to make you tea when we get home. Do you fancy a cuppa?”

John looks over at him, silhouetted against the bright light outside the cab window. His face is one of genuine concern, but also uncertainty – like he’s aware that he needs to do something, but isn’t really sure what needs to be done.

John feels a wave of affection and gratitude and something warm, deep in the pit of his stomach.

“Tea would be lovely, thank you,” he says, and he means it.

 _Do you fancy a cuppa?_ Sherlock’s voice reverberates in his head.

With a jolt like an angry slap, John remembers.

•••

_“Do you fancy a cuppa?”_

_John jerked his head upwards. A tall, lean, and not at all unattractive man was standing at the end of the cafeteria table, grinning at him. In his nimble hands, he gripped two Styrofoam cups of steaming tea._

_When John didn’t answer, he nodded to the cup in his left hand. “I’ve got an extra,” he explained, and John got the message._

_“Sure, thanks.” John smiled in what he hoped was an amiable fashion. The man sat down opposite him and handed him the cup._

_He sipped his tea and looked John up and down. “You seemed like a nice bloke,” he elaborated. He sipped again. “And I didn’t want all this extra tea to go to waste.”_

_John nodded thoughtfully. He stared at the cup for a second (he didn’t usually take cream, but it was fine, and he enjoyed the warmth of it.) “Why’ve you got an extra cup?” he asked. “Expecting someone?”_

_The man laughed in a sort of solemn way. “Well, yeah, sort of, in a way.” He laughed again, and smiled. “I live with my little sister, back home. We share a flat together. I always make her tea, so I’m used to making two cups.” He stared at John’s cup, almost sadly. “It was only when I was carrying both back to the table when I realized where I was.”_

_John nodded understandingly, although it was a bit different for him. He didn’t leave anyone behind when he joined the army – it was one of the reasons he enlisted in the first place. John Watson had no one in the world but himself._

_“Well it looks like you’re going to have someone to make that extra cup for,” John said, being a bit bolder than usual. It was about time he made his first friend in Afghanistan. He held out his hand. “I’m John Watson,” he said._

_The man grinned, and it was a nice grin. It was a very nice grin – one of the nicer ones John had ever seen. He took John’s hand in his and shook once – only once. “Ian O’Donnell.”_

_John released Ian’s hand, and took a sip of his tea. He drank thoughtfully as Ian watched him._

_Maybe having cream wasn’t all that that bad._

_•••_

Sherlock’s made a mess of the kitchen. When they arrived at their flat, John made the mistake of turning down take-in, opting for just cooking up some eggs instead – which Sherlock offered to do for him. Even if Sherlock was just trying to make him feel better (which was an oddly affectionate and horribly out of character thing for him to do) John really shouldn’t have taken him up on the offer.

“Oh, you boys,” Mrs. Hudson says accusingly when she walks in and smells the burning kitchen. She walks over to the stove and gently pushes Sherlock to the side.

As she begins to clean, John rises from his chair and flutters over to her, hovering by her shoulder. “You don’t have to do that,” he tells her gently. She shakes her head as if he’s a silly little schoolboy and pushes him away like she did Sherlock.

“I can tell you’re out of sorts,” she says (insightfully, as always.) “You’re white as a sheet, and you can barely fly. Go sit down. I’ll make you some tea.”

After a moment, John nods and lands on his feet. He walks back to his chair by the empty fireplace and thinks briefly about the first time Mrs. Hudson saw him flying. It had been about a week after the rooftop incident, after he’d gotten back on his wings (so to speak) and it really hadn’t been anything impressive – he’d been fixing a light bulb, actually. He’d been hovering about the ceiling in the front hall and screwing the new one into the small chandelier when Mrs. Hudson had walked in, stopping in her tracks. She’d looked at him for a moment, broken out in a warm maternal grin, told him “I always knew you had it in you, dear,” given his legs a quick hug (it was all she could have reached at the moment) and walked back out the other door.

John thinks about this, and then thinks about the first time Sherlock saw his wings, the first time he saw him flying. Each time there had been an expression of wonder on his face; each time there had been nothing but acceptance, but admiration, and – the second time, at least – affection. He thinks about all the other times he’d let people see the fairy side of him (whether on purpose or not): that time when he nearly lost his virginity in college, the time when he did loose it at Uni and the girl only saw his wings afterwards (she’d hit him and run from the room), a few times during his training sessions in the military, and when his first boyfriend and his fourth girlfriend had reached their hands up his shirt before he could stop them, when his teenage friends forced him to go on a trip to the beach, during the two sleepovers he ever had as a child, and – of course – during the hell of primary and secondary school.

Somehow, despite his perfectly average and not-Sherlockian memory, John remembers the face of each and every person who ever saw his wings. Each expression of horror, confusion, revulsion, or a mixture of all three, is burned onto his visual subconscious. Sometimes, there had been screaming. A lot of times there had been violence, or merely stepping back in disgust. Occasionally, there had been the worst reaction: silence, thick and choking, and then there’d be running – as if John was a danger to them. Each and every single time, the sight of his wings had put up an invisible wall between him and whoever it was that had seen them, and John lost whatever friendship they might have had together.

In Sherlock’s and Mrs. Hudson’s eyes, however, there had been awe. A fair bit of confusion at the start, but that was to be expected, and anyway, there had also been pride, marvel, curiosity. Neither had gone running; neither had struck him. They’d accepted him; to the point where nowadays, his wings were just about as insignificant as his eye color, or his scar. Not necessarily normal, but definitely nothing to make a fuss about.

Mrs. Hudson brought over his tea. John thanked her and sipped it gratefully. It was nice, but didn’t have the delicious precision of milk and sugar that Sherlock sometimes served him. At the moment, Sherlock was sitting on the couch, typing away at his computer. Mrs. Hudson sat down in Sherlock’s chair, across from John, and started doing her daily crossword puzzle. John looked at them fondly.

Before Sherlock, there had only been one time that someone had reacted to his wings that way. Just one person in what felt like dozens of others, one face that had been full of awe instead of disgust.

Only one. John sipped his tea in silence.

•••

 _“We’re going to die,” Ian panted, coming up behind him. He leaned against a jagged boulder to catch his breath. “Oh my god. My fucking god. We’re going to_ die. _”_

_“Shut up,” John snapped. Seeing Ian’s tortured face, he relented, and softened his features. “We’re not going to die.”_

_“Well, then, how the hell are we going to get back?” Ian was going slightly delirious from the heat and dehydration, and also the thin film of panic that was lying over the both of them. “We’ve got no way of contacting anyone. We were chased into the middle of this bloody desert canyon and there’s no transport coming to find us. We’ve got no food, no water, no shelter, not even a bloody_ rifle. _We’re going to die, John.”_

_John looked at him, and realized that he might be right. Could this be it for him? It couldn’t be, could it? John clenched his eyes shut and took a slow breath, fighting back the beginnings of tears. He wasn’t supposed to die like this – he was never supposed to die like this. If he was going to die in Afghanistan, it would be by going down with a fight, in the heat of the action, not by wasting away in a bloody desert with only Ian and the falcons for company._

_The two of them had fallen silent. Ian put his face in his hands. “I wish I could say something to my sister,” he said quietly. The sound resounded louder than it should have. “I… I told her I loved her, all the time, before I left and in my letters. But it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.”_

_John nodded. He’d felt the same way about his father, the day he’d died._

_“I feel like there’s something more I should have been saying,” Ian continued. John could hear his throat clenching up. “I feel like there’s something more we all should be saying, every chance we get, to the people we love. I just don’t know what it is… I don’t even know if you can say it. But what if… what if we die right here, right now, and they’ll send my little sister a fucking flag and a formal apology and that’ll be all that’s left of me?”_

_John said nothing for a moment. Finally he put a hand on his dear friend’s shoulder – Ian leaned into him completely, and John let him._

_“Did you fancy anyone back home?” John asked, trying to take Ian’s mind off death. John knew that Ian, like him, had been single when he enlisted, but he never knew if there was a story behind that._

_To John’s relief, Ian chuckled. “Yeah,” he said, smiling a bit. “There was… this bloke. Andrew. Played guitar in a little band.”_

_John smiled back. “Any good?”_

_“Nah. He was rubbish.” They both laughed. “But… he had this nice smile. And some really fantastic hair, I might add – and he worked out. Dear god, did he work out.” More laughter. “But mainly… he was so lovely to Jessica.” Ian looked off into the heat-blurred distance. “I think that’s why I started to fancy him in the first place. He worked at the library with her, and he treated her so well… she’s a fragile little thing, that Jessica… and I thought, well, any bloke who can treat my little sister like a bloody princess like that must really be worth it, you know?”_

_John nodded into Ian’s shoulder and was quiet a moment. “Maybe when we get back, you can ask him out to coffee,” he said softly. His words were tangled up into Ian’s soft frizz of hair, sheared into an army buzz cut._

_“John.” The word was soft in the sharp focus of the world. Ian shifted to look up at his friend. “We’re not getting back.” He stared at him as seriously as he could. “We’re not.”_

_John stared back, and made a decision._

_“John… what are you doing?” Ian asked, as John shuffled away and started undoing the buttons and straps on his jacket._

_“You’re right,” John said in answer. “We’re probably going to die. And I’ve decided,” he continued, throwing off his jacket and reaching to remove his undershirt – “if I’m going to die, I want to die knowing that I wasn’t hiding.” He took a breath. “I want to die being John Watson and not anyone else.”_

_“John–” Ian began, and then John stripped off his undershirt, and his words tripped over his tongue._

_John let out a breath, rolling back his bare shoulders in relief. He spread his wings wide, stretching them out into the hot, dry air, letting the shimmering chitin catch the desert sun in each reflective dip and toss rainbows back into the air._

_He took a moment before looking back at Ian. He was too terrified to see his face. What would it be this time? Terror, horror, disgust? Something new, unprecedented, and even more painful? Finally, John took a breath, and turned to look at his friend._

_His breath caught in his throat._

_Ian took a long time before he finally spoke. When he did, the expression of utter awe stayed glued to his face. “I’d…” he began, faltered, then tried again. “I’d ask if you were an angel, I actually_ know _you, so that theory’s moot.”_

_John paused for a long, confused moment before bursting out into delighted laughter. Ian took a bit longer before he cracked a grin and joined in._

_“Oh my god,” John panted, catching his breath after he grew light heated from mirth and relief and happiness. “Oh my_ god. _You’re such a_ twat. _”_

 _“_ I’m _a twat?” Ian asked indignantly. “I’m not the one who didn’t tell his bloody best friend that he’s a fucking fairy for nine months!” And, after a moment’s thought: “Okay, what are you, actually? Because, as much as I’m still in a bit of shock, I’m pretty positive you’re not human, which is… something, really. Wow.”_

_John leaned back on the boulder. His wings lay flat against the cool rock, which felt utterly fantastic. “You’re right, I’m not,” he said. “You said it yourself: I’m a fairy.”_

_Ian stared at him. “No, you’re not,” he said flatly. “You’re – John, I was_ joking, _I was_ bloody _joking, I–”_

 _“Well I’m not joking,” John responded, suddenly solemn. “I really am a fairy_. Homo superior _, sometimes referred to as_ Homo alatus _. Close relative of_ Homo sapiens _, and for some reason you humans started calling us ‘fairies’ a few centuries ago, and the name stuck. So yeah, I’m a fairy.”_

_Ian stared at him. John could see the gears in his head turning, and wondered what he was thinking._

_“But you’re a person,” he said at last, and it wasn’t a question – it was a statement, and John had quite possibly never been so glad to hear anything in his life._

_“Yeah,” he said. He held out his hand to invite Ian over, and Ian scooched closer to him, resting his head back on John’s shoulder. John ran his hand along his friend’s head until he heard his breathing slow to a nearly regular pattern._

_John looked out at the canyon below them. “Yeah, I am,” he said in agreement, and closed his eyes._

_Two hours later, they were found, and safely returned to camp._

_•••_

John stares into his now-empty mug. He looks up – Mrs. Hudson’s finished her crossword puzzle and gone off somewhere – and looks over at his flatmate, still curled up at the computer.

Without any sort of warning at all, John feels his gut and his heart and his wings and every other important part of him clench and twist, and he stares at Sherlock and his breath escapes him. In that moment, he’s the most grateful he’s ever been for a person in his life; for everything Sherlock’s done for him, everything Sherlock is to him. It writhes inside him like snake, coiling around his trachea, choking off his breath. John stares at Sherlock and tries to understand what’s happening inside him at the moment.

John’s been thinking a bit too much lately, and now it’s as if he’s used up all of his brain power and all he can possibly think to do is to walk over to that brilliant, infuriating, gorgeous man and tear that computer away from him and hold him close and… and…

And _what?_ John doesn’t know exactly what he’d want to do after that, he doesn’t know what he’s feeling or why he’s feeling it. He puts his face in his hands, almost comprehending why Sherlock tries to block out emotions as best he can.

But then John opens his eyes and there he is, curled up in the most adorable way possible, a few sharp shimmers of pale skin against the deep black and purples of his clothing, and he’s so fucking beautiful that John’s brain blanks out entirely. This is all confusing, this writhing mass of emotion and sentiment, but John’s beginning to understand exactly what it is… and he’s not entirely sure he wants to know anymore. The only thing certain at the moment is that he’s handed his heart over to Sherlock Holmes without even noticing, and maybe he’s a little bit okay with that.

Without warning, Sherlock slams his computer shut and leaps up from the couch. The sudden sound slices through John’s thoughtful state like a knife.

“What are you doing?” he asks, standing as Sherlock dons his coat and scarf.

“We’re going out,” Sherlock answers. “Go put your coat on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Lestrade found a suspect,” Sherlock answers. “Oliver McLaughry. One man connected to all of the victims – some of them were coworkers, some distant relatives, neighbors, etc.” Sherlock looks at him with a gleam in his eye that doesn’t do much to help John’s current state of over-affection. “Furthermore, I think I’ve figured out his next victim. The last known fairy acquaintance of his that lives in London: his next-door neighbor, Marcus Hasborough, who shares the flat with his girlfriend, Jessica O’Donnell.”

John stops abruptly.

“Jessica O’Donnell?” he repeats.

“Yes. Do you know her?” Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

John falters. “She has… she had a brother,” he answers. “Named Ian.”

He doesn’t say anything further. Sherlock doesn’t push him.

Sherlock turns to stride out the door, but John reaches out a hand and stops him. “Hold on,” he says. “There’s something I need to do first.”

Sherlock says nothing, but nods and waits by the door.

John turns and heads to the stairs. _It’s time,_ he thinks to himself, and flies up to his bedroom.


	18. The Coat, for the Last Time

_“Why do you hide, John?”_

_John looked over at him; just a faint outline in the dark, a black form silhouetted against a black rock. All the same, he knew Ian was staring at him with those intense eyes of his – he managed to look all-knowing and innocent at the same time, and John’s never been able to figure out how he did that._

_John didn’t ask what he was talking about. He didn’t have to elaborate for John to know. “Don’t be daft,” John mumbled. His words bounced around him, around the cool, thick rock that surrounded the two of them. “You know why I have to hide.”_

_“Yeah, I do,” Ian agreed. “But sometimes, I don’t think_ you _do.”_

_John looked over at him, surprised. “What do you mean?”_

_“I know you, John, and I know that you’ve probably never really thought about it,” Ian said. “You tell yourself that there’s just some obvious and concrete reason that you can’t be who you are, because that’s easier than admitting to yourself that you’ve got an option, in which case you’d have to make an actual choice.”_

_“I don’t… I_ don’t _have an option,” John said indignantly. “What, you think I can just start parading around with my wings out and nothing will happen? That everyone I know will just say to themselves, ‘Oh, look, there’s John Watson, just popping off for a fly like he does,” and go back about their business? I’ve already been through what happens when you tell people you’re a fairy, and it was fucking hell.”_

 _“That doesn’t mean you don’t have a_ choice, _” Ian insisted. He moved forwards, so the little bit of light they had was glowing on his face. “There’s some part deep down in your stubborn little brain that knows that if you wanted to, you could cut holes in the backs of all your shirts and live your life being who you_ are _. Being_ what _you are. And it may be awful, yeah, but someone’s got to be the first.”_

_“The first what?”_

_“The first one to step out of hiding.”_

_John stared at him, open mouthed, stunned into silence. Ian continued, gesticulating with his hands as he did so._

_“Look. I’m gay, right?” he said, and forged ahead. “And nowadays, that’s completely normal. It’s about as boring as licking envelopes. I didn’t even come out, not really; I just sort of mentioned to my mum one day that I liked the bloke down at the corner store and her only response was ‘That’s nice, sweetie, did you do your homework?’ and that was that. No one thinks twice about it. But it wasn’t always that way, was it? Twenty years ago, you’d get socially exiled if people knew you were gay. Twenty years before that, it was literally against the law. Twenty years before that, most people didn’t even know that people who weren’t straight existed. It was impossible to comprehend. And so that’s how it works, John. It goes in stages. It started out slow – a few people being bold and stepping out here and there in a heterosexual world – which eventually lead to lots of people stepping out, which led to a few decades of extreme prejudice and segregation and eventually ending up where we are today.” Ian smiled at John – it was his inspired smile, and John knew it well. “So what I’m saying is that there’s got to be a first. The first person to step out of the shadows, to lead_ all _of the fairies out of hiding. So why not you?”_

_John’s throat was too constricted to speak._

_Ian understood what his silence meant, and sat back against the rock, a look of triumph on his face. “Don’t ever say that you don’t have a choice in the matter, because that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. You’re making a choice to stay hidden, and that’s okay. It’s safer, yeah, and more logical, and it’s fine. But you could make a choice to do otherwise… and you know it.”_

_John did know it, which was why he was starting to tremble a bit._

_“I’m scared,” he said, which was horribly and honestly true. “I’m… that’s the reason. It’s the_ only _reason. I hide because hiding means stability and normality and it means having a regular life. I’m scared because I don’t know what will happen if I stop hiding.”_

_“Fine,” Ian says. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, leaning back against the rock casually. “Go ahead, live a stable life with your wings pinioned against you and an enormous lie hanging over your head. Be my fucking guest. Go ahead with being afraid at every second that someone’s going to see under your shirt and a life of being terrified every time someone touches your back. But tell me, John – what sort of a life is that?”_

_His question hung in the night air like a neon sign. John shifted his shoulders, like he so often did, feeling the dull ache of his wings far more keenly than usual. He looked around – everyone else in the camp out was asleep. Only he and Ian, who were keeping guard, were awake in the moonlit midnight._

_“I’m going up for a bit,” he said, and Ian nodded. John noticed Ian’s eyes wandering over his bare chest once he’d stripped off his jacket and undershirt, but pretended he didn’t. John always pretended that he didn’t know about Ian’s feelings for him; it made things simpler between them. He didn’t want to have to tell Ian he didn’t reciprocate. The last thing he needed was a best friend with a broken heart._

_He spread his wings and set his shoulders back, closing his eyes and letting out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He looked over at Ian, who was looking at him with the kind of eyes you keep secret, the ones you only look at someone with when they’re turned away, or in the dark of night when even the moon can’t light up your eyes well enough to be seen – but John saw. He saw, and he understood._

_With a sharp and practiced flick of his wings, he rocketed upwards. He let the freezing night air roll off him in rivulets, like water streaming down his bare back. It felt incredible… but it felt wrong._

_It felt wrong because the night sky loomed overhead and his army mates slept underneath and the vast desert rolled out in hills and jagged mountains around him, and John was concealed in darkness. Only the moon’s silver light illuminated him, but it wasn’t enough – John wanted to fly in the middle of the day, with everyone watching, and no one caring, and no one believing the filthy lie he’d been living all his life. He wanted acceptance, but not as a human. He wanted acceptance as a fairy, as a person – as John Watson._

_He hung in the air, still._

_After what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, John pulled his wings in and dropped back down to Earth; whipping them out just as he was about to hit the ground, letting the adrenaline of the moment wash over him and flood his system and hoping that the beating of his heart would drown out the voices in his head._

_When he landed, Ian was pretending to be asleep._

_John said nothing._

_•••_

John stares at what he’s holding in his hands.

It’s the first time he’s pulled it out of the closet since he put it in there, but it’s not the first time he’s thought about it. He thinks about it almost every day, actually – each morning when he gets dressed and opens the closet door, he spares a moment to glance wistfully (and not without a jolt of anxious excitement) at the grocery bag stuffed in the back corner, behind some shoes. Now, however, here it is, in his hands, rough and thick and utterly perfect, in every respect. He turns it over and over in his fingers.

He thinks back to when Sherlock gave it to him. There was that short moment when he misunderstood, and erupted at Sherlock with a painful anger he didn’t know he still had – but then it had been all right, and it had been good, and (in retrospect) that may even have been the moment John fell that first little bit in love with him – but there’s no way to know for sure. Things have always been a little bit muddled and backwards between the two of them; they’ve been doing things completely out of order. First, they move in together, then John divulges a secret he’d been keeping since childhood, then Sherlock gives him the most important gift of his life, and _then_ John falls utterly in love with him. John couldn’t imagine doing any of it any other way.

John brings the coat up to his face and breathes in the scent. It still smells new, unworn. He thinks about what it could smell like – worn, musty, smelling of his cologne and soap and the rest of the flat – if he only made it so. It’s a thought so delightful, it almost seems like a fantasy.

After a moment, John stands, leaving the empty grocery bag lying on the floor. He sticks one arm through one sleeve and starts wrestling his wings through the slits in the back; they’re not perfectly placed, he’ll have to tailor them a bit later. Finally, after not really that long of a time, he slips his other arm in and shrugs the coat forward. He nods to himself and turns to look in the mirror.

Now matter how much thinking and debating and fantasizing he did in spare moments, John was never able to prepare himself for the sight of wearing his new coat. It fits him perfectly, just as he predicted, and John would even go as far to say that he looks rather dashing, except there are these big, wonderful wings sticking out behind him, and it looks natural, _he_ looks natural, he looks _right._ For the first time in his life, John has the feeling of looking completely and utterly like himself. He turns to see his wings better, but the image doesn’t fade – the picture in the mirror is reality, not a projection, not an illusion. He looks like a person, but also like a fairy; for the first time, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

John collects himself. He squares his jaw, nods to himself, and walks down the stairs to where Sherlock is waiting impatiently.

 •••

There are certain things that Sherlock Holmes will never admit to. One of those things is the fact that, like all other people in the world, there are moments when his brain stops working. It short circuits, refuses to function properly – those little moments of complete blanking out are one of the most infuriating things in his life he ever has to deal with.

When Sherlock hears footsteps on the stairs and turns to look up at his friend, he finds himself in one of those moments. For a second, he is unable to think straight. He’s unable to think anything at all. The binary code scrolling in his mind grinds to a halt; the gears stop turning with a screech. Everything fades to a quiet lull, and there is nothing but him, Sherlock, and John at the top of the stairs.

John sees his face and smiles – _infuriating_ John, always knowing what he’s thinking (or not thinking, in this case) – and starts descending the stairs again. When he’s halfway there he flicks his wings and flutters the rest of the way down. His flight with the coat in the way is a bit shaky for a second, but then he stabilizes and he lands right next to Sherlock and Sherlock’s heart skips a trembling beat.

John looks up at him, and grins. “I promised I’d wear it,” he says. After long, far too long, Sherlock’s brain kicks back into gear.

“Yes, and I knew you would.” He looks away, hoping that John can’t read his face as well as he thinks he can. “You… look rather dashing.”

“My thoughts exactly,” John chuckles, walking down the stairs towards the front door. Sherlock follows. He watches John, the way his wings come so naturally from his coat, the way the coat makes him look smaller but also a bit rugged and even more adorable than he already looked, and Sherlock really shouldn’t be thinking about how perfectly gorgeous John is looking right now, because there are far more pressing matters at hand.

John stops just before the door. His hand is on the doorknob, but he’s frozen. Still, breathing deeply, staring at nothing.

Sherlock walks up behind him – debates for a second – and wraps his arm around John’s torso, hugging him from the back. John lets himself fall into it. He leans back into Sherlock’s chest, he relaxes the pair of wings trapped between them; he puts his hand on top of Sherlock’s, resting on his stomach. They breathe in tandem for a moment. Sherlock tries his best to draw the tension out of John’s body by breathing it in a squeezing it out, but it isn’t working. He sighs, tilting his head so that his mouth is next to John’s ear.

“You can do this, John,” he mumbles, low and calm. “You’re braver than you think.”

John nods, after a pause. “I’m dead terrified, you know,” he tells him.

“I know.”

“Of course you know.”

John pulls away and stands at the door again, adjusting himself, righting his spine, reaching out his arm for the doorknob – Sherlock feels a tug on his hand. He looks down to see John’s bare fingers closing around his gloved ones – Sherlock splays his fingers, John slides his in between, and their hands clasp together perfectly.

“I don’t want to do this alone,” John says quietly, by way of explanation.

Sherlock squeezes his hand. “You don’t have to. I’ll be here.”

John nods – he’s heard all he needed to hear.

With a breath so deep he can feel it in his bones, John opens the door and they step outside.

•••

John couldn’t felt more exposed if he was walking down the street buck-naked with a neon sign taped to his chest. He walks straight and keeps a firm hold on Sherlock’s hand as they make their way down the London street, moving around shoppers and people going here and there and talking to neighbors or phones, or whatever else it is people do. He knows that people will probably get the wrong idea – just like they always do – and he couldn’t _possibly_ care less.

People are staring. They’re _staring,_ at _him,_ and he’s terrified. No one approaches him, just as he expected, but people look. They whisper. Sometimes they talk out loud. John catches bits of some of their observations:

“What’s that guy got on fairy wings for?”

“Dunno. Best fairy wings _I’ve_ ever seen. Wonder what they’re made out of?”

“Is that guy mental? Why’s he wearing those?”

“He a drag queen or something?”

“For fuck’s sake, he’s not a drag queen. Does he look like a fucking drag queen?”

“Mummy, look, that man over there is a fairy!”

“No, sweetie, he’s just wearing fake wings. He’s probably an actor or something. Come on, we’ve got to get going…”

 _Of course,_ John thinks. Of course people would think they were fake. A small part of John is almost disappointed; he finally got the bloody courage to show the world what he is, and they don’t even believe him.

After another block, he’s heard nothing but whispers about his strange choice of costume and he’s starting to feel furious. It’s irrational, he knows that, but it’s boiling up in his blood and swirling around in his head like storm clouds – why can’t these people _see_ , why don’t they understand? Is everyone around him really just too fucking stuck on reality that they can’t even see John’s wings when he practically shoves them in their faces? Years of pain and inner confliction and an excruciating decision that took the most courage he’s ever exerted into something all accumulates and comes down to this: being mocked for strange fashion choices and being called a fucking _drag queen._

John’s in the air before he can even stop himself.

Sherlock grips his hand tighter as he hovers along next to him, just flapping his wings enough to get him an inch or so off the ground, almost letting Sherlock pull him along. John closes his eyes for a moment to catch his breath back, and when he opens them up again – well, if he thought people were staring before, he was bloody wrong.

He watches jaws drop in front of him and behind him and all around him; _everyone_ is looking now, _everyone._ People have stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing to watch him: a man holds a half-eaten Mars Bar up to his mouth, a woman stands frozen with a phone to her ear, a small dog yips at the feet of his distracted owner, some kids let their pieces of chalk fall to the ground as they stare. John swallows his fear and they keep walking.

They keep walking – more people stare. John hears their words, their whispering, their exclamations of shock, their loudly-asked questions – Sherlock squeezes his hand tighter, as if he’s reminding him not to float away. They’re nearing their destination when John hears it.

“Get off the streets, freak!” someone shouts – John turns his head to see him. It’s a middle aged man, wrinkle skinned and bald.

The call is immediately followed by another: “Fairy trash!” John doesn’t bother looking.

“What they fuck is he doing in public?” – the middle-aged man again.

“Go kill yourself!” adds another – an older woman.

Sherlock opens his mouth to retort, but John shuts him up with a shake of his head. “They’re not worth it,” he says. “And I don’t need you to reassure me that you’re on my side – I know you are.”

Sherlock scowls at them anyway. “How can they be so ignorant?” he spits into the air (John doesn’t have an answer.) “They know _nothing_ about you. They’re _revolting._ ”

John looks around at the rest of the people around him, who are mainly just shocked. He sees some other emotions mixed in here and there: disgust, terror, and – yes – _awe,_ although mostly there’s just confusion and surprise. He can tell pretty easily which people have seen fairies before and which haven’t. There are even a few people here and there who look at him, shrug, and walk on. Without a doubt, those apathetic onlookers are the ones that make John’s heart sing the most.

Suddenly, a young woman walks out in front of them and stops, staring him down. John flinches, waiting for the vicious attack, but blinks when he sees the expression on her face. It’s not unpleasant – in fact, it’s full of understanding and respect. The woman opens her mouth to speak, but closes it and decides against saying anything. Instead, she reaches up to her eye and removes one of her contacts.

John stares at her violet iris – the woman stares at John. He understands, and it sends a thrill up and down his spine.

The woman raises her hand and touches two fingers to her temple; an ancient fairy sign of respect, akin to a salute. John returns the motion and nods. With a quick smile, as if someone might catch her in the act, the woman moves on (putting her contact back in as she goes.)

The detective and the fairy go the rest of the way in silence. People stare the entire way, but no one approaches them again. John feels, quite literally, lighter than air.

•••

Sherlock pushes the buzzer on the door. The two of them wait for a moment, and then a voice comes through.

“Who is it?” – a woman’s voice.

“Afternoon,” Sherlock says, fake smiling. “We’re with the police – _well_ , sort of. Think we could come in and talk for a bit?”

There’s a short pause. “Oh my god,” the woman says. “Is it… Andrew? Is he… oh my god, is he… _dead_ , or…?”

“Let us up and we’ll talk about it,” Sherlock says through smiling lips.

“Oh my god,” the woman repeats, and buzzes the door open.

“Nice,” John mutters sarcastically as they walk up the old stone steps to the second floor.

“What?”

“Letting her think we’ve come to tell her about her boyfriend’s grisly murder.” John sighs and shakes his head. “You don’t… just _tell_ someone you’re with the police, and then not tell them _why_ you’re there; they always assume the worst.”

“Well, in a way, we _have_ come to tell her about her boyfriend’s grisly murder,” Sherlock responds. “It just hasn’t happened yet.”

“Right. Like that’s going to make her feel any better.”

When they reach the door to her flat, she’s waiting outside in the hallway for them. She looks panicked.

“Is it Andrew?” she asks almost immediately. “Is he okay? Oh god, it’s not my mum, is it? Oh my god, it’s–”

“Nobody’s dead,” John says, in what he hopes is a reassuring voice. “That’s not why we’ve come to talk to you.”

“But why would the police–”

“We’re not the police,” John tells her. “But we help them out. We’re detectives.”

She seems confused. “Oh. Um. Okay.”

“We think your boyfriend is the going to be the next murder victim of a certain serial killer, who happens to be your next door neighbor,” Sherlock says smoothly.

John sighs at the sight of Jessica’s horrified face. “Couldn’t have been a bit more gentle about it?” he mutters. Sherlock ignores him.

“Oliver?” she gasps after a moment. “I mean… he’s always been a bit grumpy, but he can’t possibly be… I mean, he wouldn’t… _kill_ people, I mean–”

“Oliver McLauhgry,” Sherlock says, launching into another rapid-fire stream of speech, “has been systematically killing all of his associates that he knows to be fairies, specifically through chitin wounds.” (At this, Jessica’s face contorts even further into a horrified expression.) “Not sure why yet, I’m still working on it. He’s killed five people so far – including a colleague from work, a University friend and one of his running mates. Marcus Hasborough would be the likeliest next victim, as McLaughry’s already booked a flight out of London and a house in Sussex. The logical assumption: he’s preparing to kill his last victim, the one closest to him, most likely to be associated with him – your boyfriend – and then making a run for it.”

Jessica stares at him, aghast. “Oliver _wouldn’t do that,_ ” she says. “He’s _not_ a serial killer. He’s _not._ ”

“How long have you known him?” Sherlock asks.

Jessica sighs a bit, a little defeated. “Okay, I’ve only known him for three months. Since I moved in here with Andrew.”

“Wait, hold on,” John says, holding his hand up. “Who’s Andrew?”

“Oh, sorry,” Jessica says, shaking her head. “Andrew. He’s Marcus. Andrew is his middle name… it’s what he likes to go by.”

“Ah. Okay.”

“So let’s say… let’s say that what you’re saying is true,” Jessica breathes, staring at Sherlock now. “And Oliver really is… planning to… you know. You know what I mean. Okay. So what… what do I do?”

“You’ll wait until Andrew gets home, and then the both of you will leave. Go somewhere fairly far away, preferable out of this city, and stay there for a week. Dr. Watson and I will stay here and wait for McLaughry to come back to his flat.”

“That’s insane. If he really is as crazy as you say he is… he’ll kill you.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Sherlock smirks.

Five minutes later, John and Sherlock are situated in the small flat. Jessica’s just come back from putting the kettle on – she sits next to John.

“You know, I never even asked,” she says, “–who are you two? Why should I trust anything you say?”

John points to Sherlock. “That tall bloke over there is Sherlock Holmes,” he says. Jessica interrupts him before he can introduce himself.

“Sherlock Holmes? My god, I know who he is.” She looks at Sherlock, who’s studying the flat around them. “I’ve heard of you two. You… solve crimes for a living, is that right? And… which one of you is supposed to be the utter genius?”

“That would be him.” John nods in his friend’s direction.

“And you’re… James…? Something?”

John coughs. “John Watson, actually.”

Jessica stares at him. “I’ve… heard that name before… do I know you?”

John stares at the floor. He closes his eyes while his throat closes itself. “No, I, um. Well.” He coughs again. “I… I knew your… your brother.” He hears Jessica’s sharp intake of breath. “I fought with him in Afghanistan. He was… my best friend, for a while, actually. He must have mentioned me in a letter or two.”

When he looks back up, Jessica’s staring at him with wide, pained eyes. She clears her throat and breathes deeply. “Yeah, I… I remember you, yes.” She swallows, and then laughs a little. “He did talk about you a lot.”

John laughs with her. “Yeah, well… that’s Ian, I guess.”

“Yeah. I guess it was.” Jessica looks back at the floor. “He, um. He didn’t mention you were a fairy, though.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that would be a little hard to explain through letters.”

“I guess it would.” Jessica looks like she’s torn between changing the subject and connecting with this odd man who knew her brother, once. “I didn’t know about fairies back then, so I doubt I’d have believed him.”

“Well, you’re dating one, so I guess you’ve come to believe in them by now.” John looks around. “Erm, by the way… I hope you don’t mind me asking… but, Andrew. He doesn’t… play guitar, does he?”

Jessica looks startles. “Yeah, he does. In a little band.”

“And… is he any good?”

“No, he’s rubbish. Why?”

John smiles to himself. “No reason,” he says.

•••

The room is dark. Sherlock refuses to put any lights on (“If he sees lights on in the flat, he won’t come in, John.”) so the two of them are waiting about in the pitch-black sitting room. Jessica and Andrew should be well out of the city by now. John wonders how they’re doing – Andrew didn’t take the news too well. John didn’t think he would.

“Sherlock,” John whispers.

Sherlock doesn’t answer.

“ _Sherlock_ ,” he whispers again, more violently.

“Hm?”

John looks around them. “Do you have a plan?”

“Hm?”

“For when McLaughry gets here. What are we going to do?”

Sherlock looks over at him, over his fingertips (hands in the posh-thinking-pose position.) “You’ll wait behind the door, I’ll give him a spritz of pepper spray, and we’ll knock him out. Then I’ll phone up Lestrade and have him bring a car over.”

“Okay… seems simple enough.” John went over to stand by the door. Sherlock remained where he was, by the window. It was nearly two in the morning – the streets were only inhabited by drunk teenagers and bums. Sherlock stayed frozen for another ten minutes, until he finally swished away from the window and went to stand in the dark corner near the door.

“Did you see him?” John whispers.

Sherlock nods. “Middle-aged man. Probably nearing forty. Brown-haired, balding on the top. Wearing a short parka and jeans. Military veteran – which would explain his excellent aim. Currently coming up the stairs.”

He shuts up and slows his breathing. John does the same.

They wait.

They continue to wait, for what seems like an absurdly long time. John checks his watch – half an hour has gone by since they’d heard him coming up the stairs.

“Think he’s gone off for a snack?” John whispers.

“Maybe he’s not going to kill tonight,” Sherlock whispers back.

John nods and looks back at the door.

He turns his head when he hears the click of a gun.

The first thing John sees is Sherlock staring at him with an urgent but poker-faced expression. The second thing John sees is a figure on the other side of the room, engulfed in shadows, pointing a pistol at Sherlock’s head.

“Move,” the figure says, looking straight at John – “and your friend dies.”

John stays where he is. His heart is screaming at his chest, as if his ribs are the metal bars of a cage.

“You really thought I’d use the front door?” the figure scoffs. “How d’you figure I’d have killed all those freaks if I was that stupid?”

“Hm,” Sherlock says, doing his best to sound unimpressed. John knows that voice; Sherlock uses it when he’s trying to throw criminals off their balance. “Are you a regular genius too, then?”

“No,” McLaughry says. “Just a man on a mission who knows how to kill.”

“That’s what you call it?” Sherlock mutters.

“And what would _you_ call it, Mr. Holmes?”

Sherlock gives him a side-glance. “Serial murderer,” he suggests.

“No, no, no.” John hears something off-putting in the words. The tone of voice is dead serious, and maybe that’s what’s off-putting about it. This man isn’t crazy; he’s _angry_ , which is even more terrifying. “ _Murder_ is only when you kill _people._ And these _things–”_ (he gestures at John with the gun) “–aren’t people. So no, it’s not murder. I call it… extermination.” He grins a humorless, empty grin, which disappears within a second. “Pest control.”

John feels the beginnings of raw hatred coiling inside his gut – along with the first floods of fear. He can feel a similar mixture of emotions coming alive on Sherlock’s nearly unreadable face. The detective turns to face McLaughry.

“All those people,” he says (John can hear his hesitation, his confusion) “–you hated all of them, but that’s no reason to hate all fairies–”

“Don’t you fucking get it?” McLaughry snaps – John can feel a cold shiver run down his spine. “You’re wrong. You’re fucking wrong, Sherlock fucking Holmes. I don’t hate fairies because I killed those people.” He steps forward. “I killed those people because I _hate fairies._ ”

He steps out of the shadows.

John’s mind goes utterly blank in pure white terror. His ears are full of the sound of gunshot and wind and screaming; hot desert sand and hot blood and blind horror are all etched into every single line on McLaughry’s horribly familiar face.

“No,” John breathes, stepping back. Raising his wings up, preparing to fly, preparing to run, as long as he _gets away_ because oh _god oh god_ it’s _him._ “ _You_.”

“Me,” McLaughry agrees. Quick as a whip, he moves his arm to point his gun at John. Sherlock jerks forward instinctively, but stops in midair, watching the gun and John with increasing terror. McLaughry smiles – that humorless, empty smile. “Dr. Watson and I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

 _Oliver McLaughry_ , John thinks.

_Oliver Jason McLaughry._

_Used to go by Jason, when he was in the army._

_Of course._

John clenches his hand so hard he pierces through the skin.

Jason McLaughry: the man who, a little over three years ago, shot John Watson.


	19. Intent To Save

_“Be careful, you madman.” Ian stared up at him, panic inked all over his face. “Just… don’t die on me, all right? You’d better not fucking die on me, Watson.”_

_John said nothing. He didn’t like to make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep._

_He shot up into the sky and flew. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and pushed his wings faster and faster as he went straight for the heat-seeking missile, careening through the sky towards the camp. It was a truly impossible, spur of the moment plan, but it was the only one he had._

_“Don’t die on me, Watson,” he repeated to himself, and forged onward._

_•••_

Sherlock’s heart is a wall of white noise in his ears. He doesn’t know why John is panicking, but that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to know _why_ John is panicking to know that it’s something truly awful.

“So here’s what’s going to happen,” McLaughry says. He keeps the gun aimed, pinpoint, at John. “You’re going to let me go. I’m going to walk out of here and you’re not going to come find me. You’re never going to see me again.”

Sherlock decides to play his game – it seems like the safest option. _Keep him talking – serial killers love to talk._ “And why would I do that?” he asks.

McLaughry doesn’t even laugh. “Do I really need to spell it out for you?” he says calmly.

In his peripheral vision, Sherlock sees John take a deep and shuddering breath.

McLaughry starts backing towards the door, keeping the gun trained on John as he inches across the room. “Don’t try to come after me, either,” he says. “I knew you were coming tonight, you know. I’m not an idiot. I brought backup.”

Sherlock says nothing.

McLaughry gives them both one last glance from where he stands over the threshold. He stares at John – Sherlock can feel the waves of anguish rolling off of him, a palpable substance emanating from his body.

“You should have died back in Afghanistan,” McLaughry tells him (Sherlock’s blood runs cold at the words.) “You know… it’s why I started killing fairies. It’s a hobby, really. And it all started with you.” He backs further into the door and stares at John with a look of utter hatred. “You were the one that got away. I never forgave you for that. I guess you might live this time around, but hey – you win some, you lose some, right?”

John doesn’t respond.

McLaughry gives Sherlock one last glance before spinning on his heel and bolting for the door.

Immediately, Sherlock starts walking towards the window, opening it up. John stays where he is.

 _“Sherlock!”_ he hisses. “Did you hear what he said? He’s got backup, you’re going to get killed!”

“Already taken care of,” Sherlock tells him absentmindedly.

“What?” John asks. “When did you take care of his backup?”

“Remember when you were chatting with Jessica, and I went off to the loo?”

“Oh. Okay then. Good.” John walks over to him and looks out the window at the fire escape. “So. We’re going after him?”

Sherlock nods, jumping out onto the metal grate. “We’re going after him.”

He’s surprised at the expression on John’s face. It’s grim, but not entirely sad. There’s something exhilarated about him, as if he’s been waiting for this for a long time.

“Good,” John says, and climbs out the window after him.

•••

Sherlock, due to his rather inconvenient inability to fly, is still fairly far behind. John soars up into the air, looking around, trying to think like Sherlock – trying to observe, predict, and figure out where McLaughry would have gone. Exited out the back of the building, gone down the stairs, probably dodged into the alleyway and – _there._

John spots him, clear as day, running off in the distance. He thinks a moment. Should he alert Sherlock and wait for him, risk losing McLaughry as he runs off? Should he go after the man himself, let Sherlock know with a text? Should he stop him and then wait for Sherlock to get there?

John takes his gun out of his pocket and grips it like a lifeline in his fingers. He eyes McLaughry off in the distance.

This one is for John alone.

He flies off after him, sending a text to Sherlock to let him know where he’s headed, and leaving the detective in the dust.

•••

_John couldn’t think, but he knew something was wrong._

_Dust, everywhere. Coughing. Screaming. Yelling. Confusion._

_“John!” someone yelled from… somewhere. John turned in the air, trying to find his friend._

_“John!”_

_“Ian…” he choked out, coughing on debris. Did he really just save everyone’s lives? Fucking hell, he_ did _._

_“John!”_

_“_ John _.”_

_The second voice came from behind him. While Ian was yelling his name frantically, trying to find him, the other voice was stating it – like the answer to a question. The voice wasn’t entirely familiar and just reeked of malice. John’s blood turned to ice as he looked over to where the statement had come from._

_He saw a figure in the dust._

_“John Watson,” the figure said. Its voice was shaking, with – fear? Rage? Mixture of both? “I fucking knew it.”_

_It was then, and only then, that John saw the gun._

_•••_

John lands and cocks his gun before a single word is said.

The noise rings out in the alleyway, and it’s just loud enough. McLaughry stops where he is and turns. He holds his hands up into the air. His pistol is tucked neatly into his pocket.

“Put the gun on the ground,” John orders calmly – his voice in no way reflects the tremors going up and down his spine.

McLaughry smiles. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll _bloody_ shoot you.”

“Oh come on. You don’t want to kill me.”

“No, I really don’t.” John remains calm and steady. “But I will if you make me. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve killed a man.”

“Then we understand each other.” McLaughry picks up the gun and drops it to the ground. “Better?”

“Much, thanks.”

“So what is it that you want with me?”

John swallows. “I want you to spend the rest of your fucking life in jail. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen – the police are already on their way.”

McLaughry shakes his head. “This is so fucked up, you know,” he says. “I’m doing the world a _favor_. I’m ridding the world of monsters. And what do these people call it? They call it _murder_. As if it’s a _crime_. As if you animals don’t _deserve_ to die.”

John doesn’t grace him with a response.

McLaughry looks over at him. “So what is it that happens now?” he asks. “You stand there and hold a gun at me until the police show up?”

“It’s either that or you try to run and I shoot you.” John grips the gun tighter. “Your choice.”

John stares at him. _This is it,_ he thinks. _This is it._

McLaughry stands and says nothing.

He only smiles.

_This is–_

“John!”

John whips his head over to look at Sherlock running towards him and skidding to a stop in the alleyway. He sees Sherlock pause, then look – utterly horrified – over past John’s shoulder. John turns his head back, cursing his momentary distraction, only to see McLaughry pluck the gun from the ground and aim and–

•••

It starts as a searing pain in his wing.

Within a split second, his entire body is screaming in pure, exponential agony.

Seconds after that, his mind collapses in on itself.

John Watson starts to die.

•••

_Time stopped as he felt the bullets pass through him._

_One through his shoulder – searing pain, delayed by a second. Part of his mind went white._

_But then the second bullet came, and it went over his shoulder, and it burst through the chitin – leaving a neat little hole where it entered and left. It took a second before it registered, and then there was falling and screaming – his own screaming, this time – and wind rushing past his ears as he fell and hit the ground with a force that would have been horribly painful if his entire mind hadn’t already been swamped, flooded, soaked with agony. If the very breaths that passed through his shuddering lips weren’t already torturous._

_He felt things around him, vaguely, but he couldn’t register what they were. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t see, couldn’t think. His mind was exploding; it was collapsing. He remembered everything he’d ever tried to suppress – every guilt, horror, secret, sorrow, pain, fury, panic, fear, all of it rushing around inside him like an internal hurricane. He couldn’t think, couldn’t see – did it matter? All that existed in that moment was the pain._

_John wished for death. He could feel himself begging for it, he could feel the half-conscious words leave his lips as he begged to die, begged for anything that could end this._

_His entire consciousness was burning up and in a matter of minutes, there’d be nothing left at all._

_•••_

Sherlock watches John fall to the ground. Something inside of him snaps.

He doesn’t think – he doesn’t need to. John’s gun is in his hands before he’d considered it, the bullet is shot, and McLaughry – already running away – falls to the ground, clutching his bleeding side.

Sherlock kneels down by John. He wasn’t prepared for what he sees.

John’s entire wing is in tatters. The bullet has ripped through the transparent skin like tissue paper, leaving jagged pieces lying everywhere, hanging off what was left of the wing’s frame.

His wings look different, _wrong_. They’ve turned a sickly translucent grey, as if they’re full of clouds. They look _ill._ Dying. _John_ looks ill. Ill and… dying.

“Sh… Sher…” John chokes, gasping in pain and crying out. Sherlock is beginning to panic and despair far too much to think clearly.

“I’m here,” he says, too forcefully, too loudly. John’s writhing in agony against the pavement, eyes squeezed shut and hands clenched to the point where they could pop veins, and time is slipping away too quickly. He cries out again – everything in Sherlock cringes at the sound of John being in so much pain. His mind is on panicked overdrive. _Save him protect him don’t let him hurt_ _don’t let him feel this stop this stop it now stop it._

“John…” he says. _Desperate._ Sentiment: a chemical default found on the losing side, and Sherlock’s beginning to understand why. John is slipping away under his fingers and time has never felt so precious. “John. Tell me what to do. You said there was a way to cure it, now _tell me!_ ”

He shakes John’s body, and John screams in pain. Tears are streaming down his cheeks and when he looks at Sherlock, he’s so desperate and frightened and so completely different from normal, not-about-to-die John, that Sherlock has a small moment of not being able to breathe.

“There’s… oh _god_ ,” he moans, tossing his head back. “ _God_ it hurts, Sherlock, it hurts so fucking much…”

“John…”

“I can feel myself dying.” John pants. He holds a hand to his head and shuts his eyes. “I can feel everything inside me burning up. I can’t… I can’t escape it, it’s everywhere, oh _god_ …”

Sherlock looks around them; he doesn’t know what he’s looking for, just anything. “John. _Tell me how to cure it_ , I’ll do whatever you need.” He looks back at John, his eyes blazing. “ _TELL ME!”_

John looks at him, obviously trying to force words out of his mouth. “Left… pocket,” he gasps. “My trousers.”

Sherlock doesn’t hesitate. He digs his fingers into John’s left trouser pocket, fishing around until he finds something small and smooth and pulls it out. He stares at it, uncomprehending. John stares at Sherlock.

Sherlock opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He holds the Swiss Army Knife in his fingers as delicately as he can.

“John…?” he whispers.

John groans as he forces himself to sit up. He holds his tattered wings out and chokes off a scream as he does so.

His words are quiet, but they don’t need to be loud.

Sherlock hears them.

•••

“Cut them off.”

•••

John doesn’t see Sherlock’s face. He doesn’t need to.

“John… no…”

“Just _do it,_ Sherlock!” he screams. He grits his teeth. “If you don’t cut my bloody wings off this _bloody_ _second_ , I am going to die.”

He gasps as another hot wave of pain scorches his flesh. “Please,” he chokes, and apparently, that’s all Sherlock needs to hear.

The detective puts one arm around him, holding his back and steadying him, while he reaches the other arm around to place the knife on top of John’s wing. John can hear him take a deep breath as he starts to press down.

“John…” he whispers. His hand on John’s back tightens. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

He starts sawing the knife. John screams.

“I’m sorry…”

John bites his lip so hard he draws blood. The pain is unbearable. He should have just asked Sherlock to grab the gun sitting next to them and end it all the fast way. Would have been much less messier.

“John…” Sherlock whispers (desperate) when John chokes off another scream.

The blade isn’t sharp. The cut isn’t clean and smooth, but ripping and jagged. Sherlock pushes down and saws and cuts. He tears the nerves and the glassy veins – they hang in tattered pieces from John’s back. He presses his face into John’s hair and holds him as he moans in agony – back, forth, down, slice, repeat.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he whispers into John’s ear as John’s left wing finally rips off completely and falls to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes, as he starts sawing off the other one. “I’m sorry.”

John whimpers and Sherlock whispers as the knife makes its way back and forth through John’s chitin. Both throats are hoarse (John’s from screaming, Sherlock’s from dryness). John digs his fingers into Sherlock’s arm, so hard he knows he’s leaving painful marks. He doesn’t care.

He feels a final, searing rip on his back, and then instant relief. Something quiet flutters to the ground behind him. The screaming in his head fades and the torture everywhere in his body starts to soften. He turns, to look. There are two shredded wings lying on the asphalt behind him. He reaches a hand back to feel where they used to be – there’s just a stinging, jagged edge.

“John…” Sherlock begins. He quiets, not knowing what to say. John doesn’t know what to say, either.

However, he does know what to do.

John grabs Sherlock’s hand. He tears off the glove and laces their fingers together. Sherlock seems surprised, but doesn’t resist.

“Is that it, then?” he asks quietly. He looks away, towards the ground. “You’ll be fine now?”

John looks at him. He shakes his head.

“I’m not finished yet,” he says. He grips Sherlock’s hand tighter. Takes a deep breath. Focuses his mind. “There’s one more thing to be done.”

•••

_“How?” Ian had screamed at him desperately. The sun had been hot, far too bright (a light at the end of a tunnel?) John had been nearly too weak to reply… lying in a pool of his own blood… tipping over the verge of death…_

_Somehow, he’d found the strength to tell Ian what to do. Ian had protested at first, of course, and John had been bloody terrified. But a suitable knife had been found, John had propped himself up against something solid, and here he was, choking off scream after scream and watching Ian’s tear-stained face as he cut off John’s wings._

_“You told me…” Ian managed, though gritted teeth – “that only hatred could cut through your wings. Only intent to kill.”_

_“Intent to kill,” John gasped, clenching his fists, “or intent to save.”_

_“What?”_

_“There’s two parts to it,” John explained, trying his very best not to scream out every word. God, he was going to die. That wouldn’t really be so bad, compared to this. Anything would be better than this. “Only the two emotional extremes can get through fairy chitin: hate, or… or love. That’s how it works.”_

_Ian didn’t stop cutting, but he looked over at John, eyes wide and brows furrowed. “So… god, you mean… you’re saying I… can cut through these because I… oh god, you’re saying because I–”_

_“Because you’re my best mate,” John finished for him. He didn’t want to bring up Ian’s feelings – not here, not now. Not ever, maybe. In any case, a confession of love in this current situation would just be unbearable. “You care about me, right? I mean, we’re best friends, aren’t we?”_

_Ian looked like a cross between relieved and disappointed. He turned back to the task at hand, which just happened to be sawing off John’s wings. The first one was already on the dusty desert ground, grey and cloudy and dead – he was working on the second one. John wanted to die._

_“Yeah,” Ian said, and then he didn’t say anything after that._

_John let the hot tears run down his face as his other wing finally ripped away from his body. The agony in every fiber of his being didn’t stop, though – it only got worse._

_Maybe this wasn’t going to work. It didn’t work every time, he knew that. Maybe he really was going to die._

_“I’m going to die,” he whispered. “I’m going… to die.”_

_“Fuck, John,” Ian said, voice breaking, and kissed him._

_John’s first reaction was to pull away – well, it would have been, anyway, if he’d had even the slightest fiber of strength left in his body – but then he felt something. He felt warmth, and not warmth coming from himself; the excruciating pain started to ebb away._

Of course _, he thought, and he lifted a hand to grip Ian’s face and keep it close, to stop him from pulling back. John could feel Ian’s lith energy pouring into him through their point of contact like a breath of summer air. There it was, the missing key to John’s survival: John’s lith energy had been completely destroyed, and Ian had more than enough to spare. John was taking it in, rebuilding himself with it from the inside out – he was going to survive. He_ was.

_When Ian finally broke away, John let him, but kept his hands gripped tightly on his face. The pain was back down to a dull, manageable, full-body ache. He could feel the fresh energy swirling around inside him, bringing him back to life. He was almost ready._

_“You’ll never fly again,” Ian whispered. He hung his head and avoided John’s eyes. “You… you won’t… god, John. I’m sorry.”_

_John said nothing. He merely smiled._

_“I’m not done yet,” he told Ian._

_He wasn’t._

_•••_

There’s a moment of doubt, when John panics. Maybe Sherlock’s energy won’t be enough. Maybe Sherlock doesn’t even have any extra energy to spare. Maybe Sherlock doesn’t really give a rat’s arse about him, and he _is_ just a colleague to him, in which case he’s about to slip back into torture and die a slow and painful death…

But then. Sherlock was able to cut through John’s wing, wasn’t he? John had stared at Sherlock’s gloved hand, the one that had, just seconds ago, ripped a knife through his supposedly impenetrable chitin. _Intent to save. One of the two emotional extremes._ Sherlock certainly didn’t _hate_ him, so there was only one logical explanation left.

 _I thought you loved me,_ John told Sherlock silently. _And now I know you do._

He’d ripped off Sherlock’s glove and he’d felt the spark of electricity the moment their hands touched – which sounded cliché, of course, but John wasn’t talking about simple chemistry. He feels huge waves of energy surging into him through where their fingers entwine. It feels like sucking in a deep breath and breathing life back into himself. Rebuilding himself from the inside with everything Sherlock’s giving him.

“Don’t let go,” he breathes out, and puts a hand on Sherlock’s face. He doesn’t need to; the connection through their fingers is more than enough. He does it anyway.

Sherlock relaxes his eyes and leans his face into John’s touch. It’s a subtle, nearly uncatchable movement, but John notices.

“Almost there,” John whispers. He doesn’t know who he’s reassuring – Sherlock or himself.

“John…?”

John clenches his teeth, then lets out a half-choked cry and something pierces through the skin in his back. It’s painful, but nothing compared to what he was going through merely seconds ago; just a little pinch, like a flu shot.

Sherlock is looking over his shoulder. “John, is that…” he begins. He falters. “Are you…?”

John sighs in relief as he feels the new pterostigma forming, followed by the costa and subcosta. After that, his body starts rebuilding the veins, the radius and nodus, bit by bit, and filling in the glassy chitin between them. After a few silent moments, the pain eases – the warm energy inside him fades, and the world returns to normal.

John flexes his new wings. Still sore, but perfectly okay. He leans back on his hands to get a look at Sherlock’s face – when he sees it, he smiles.

“Finished,” John tells him, grinning. Sherlock finally closes his mouth, which was hanging open. He furrows his brow.

“You should have told me you could regrow them,” he complains. “I thought… I thought you… I thought that I had–”

“I know.” John caresses Sherlock’s cheek with his hand. It’s far too intimate a gesture to be tossed aside as just “friendly,” but John doesn’t have time for social regulations right now. They’ll just pretend it never happened in a day or so, like they always do. “Sorry about that.”

Sherlock smiles. John can see police cars and sirens over Sherlock’s shoulder, a figure – probably Lestrade – taking McLaughry away in handcuffs. Sherlock doesn’t even turn to see it.

“And you call _me_ a manipulative twat,” he mutters.

John laughs. “Let’s go home,” he says. He takes his hand off of Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock nods and stands, offering John a hand to help him up. John takes it and rises shakily to his feet. “Dinner?” Sherlock asks.

“Not this time.” John leans on him heavily as they walk down the alleyway. “I’m completely done in, I need some sleep.”

Sherlock mutters a noncommittal sound of agreement. They pass Lestrade as they leave the alleyway, but Lestrade doesn’t say anything – he can probably sense that neither of them wants to be spoken to at the moment.

On the way back to the flat, they talk about ordinary things. Prospective cases, getting that month’s rent in order, who needs to do grocery shopping, if Sherlock’s interested in going hunting for new china at garage sales. Their hands never part, and that’s okay. At least, John’s pretty sure that it is. His mind’s a little screwy at the moment.

Maybe he’ll know for sure what to think about this in the morning.

•••

_“Can you walk?”_

_John nodded and stood. As soon as he did, he toppled forward and only managed to catch himself by fluttering his brand new wings a bit. They stung and ached, but at least they worked._

_“Fuck,” he said. He reached down to feel his kneecap. “My leg… it’s… it’s not working right…”_

_Suddenly, he understood. He looked over at Ian, who’d had a bad leg for ages. Of course – when John had rebuilt himself off of Ian’s energy, his body had taken a little bit of Ian into him, and apparently the bit it had taken was Ian’s faulty knee._

_“Small price to pay,” John muttered, and started limping off after his friend._

_“We’ve got to get out of here,” Ian told him. “It’s not safe. People are going insane.”_

_“Yeah,” John agreed. The air was still clouded in smoke and dust. People were screaming, things were on fire._

_John could tell that Ian was dying to talk about the kiss. He’d seemed completely ready to apologize for it and agree to never speak of it again, but then John had held onto him and kissed him back – John didn’t have the heart to explain that he was only keeping him close because he needed to in order to survive. Maybe some other day, when they weren’t running for their lives in utter chaos, they could have that conversation._

_John didn’t love Ian the way Ian wanted him to. However, there was some small part of him that thought that maybe he could, if given enough time. John sighed and jumped over a huge piece of rubble on the ground – they’d work it out later._

_Ian was exactly twelve feet ahead of him when the bullet went through his head._

_He was already dead by the time John reached him._

_Two weeks later, John was on a plane back to the UK. His shoulder had been treated and was going to heal alright, but he had been invalided home. Ian’s limp stayed with him for a little over a year, until he forgot his cane at a restaurant and Sherlock Holmes proved a point – his leg worked perfectly fine after that._

•••

John wakes up with the decision already made.

He gets out of bed and slips on his robe over his t-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. He brushes his teeth, checks for excessive morning breath, heads out of the bathroom, flies down the stairs (new wings in perfect working order, apparently) and goes to find Sherlock in the kitchen.

“John,” Sherlock says, by way of greeting. He pushes his goggles up to his forehead and strips off his rubber gloves. “You seem to be feeling just fine. I need your assistance with something: I’m performing an experiment on the effects of concentrated carbon monoxide when mixed with–”

He doesn’t say anything after that, because that’s when John wraps his arms around Sherlock’s neck and kisses him.

There’s a moment of stillness, when Sherlock freezes and John freezes because he’s not entirely sure how this is going to end up or if he’s done it wrong or miscalculated something, but then Sherlock lets out a small sound that could only be described as a faint squeak, wraps his long arms around John’s waist, and kisses him back, and it’s fine – it’s better than fine, it’s bloody fantastic.

Sherlock’s lips are soft – John had expected nothing less. Even softer than he’d imagined, but also a bit chapped, slightly flaky. His morning breath is bloody awful; John doesn’t care in the slightest. The only things he cares about at the moment are Sherlock’s hands on his back, Sherlock’s skin under his own fingertips, Sherlock’s mouth pressing awkwardly and beautifully into his.

It started as a tight-lipped and hesitant kiss, but after Sherlock tilts his head and after they bump noses awkwardly and John steps on Sherlock’s bare toes in an attempt to reach a bit higher, their mouths click together more comfortably and they open their lips together. John reaches up to card his fingers through Sherlock’s hair – Sherlock lets out a small sound of contentment into John’s mouth – and Sherlock runs his hands up and down the small of John’s back. All the while John’s skin everywhere is tingling pleasantly and Sherlock’s breath feels warm and heavy against his mouth.

Love blooms in John’s chest like dye dropped in water. He feels dizzy with it, giddy, almost absurdly so. It spreads out from inside him to the farthest reaches of his extremities; his fingertips tingle with it as they press into Sherlock’s neck, his toes tickle as they balance on the floor.

He mutters something inaudible into the kiss. He’s not even sure what it was he said, but he thinks it might have been important. They keep on kissing until Sherlock pulls away, a bit breathless, and John leaves a trail of small, affectionate pecks up his cheek. He presses his face into Sherlock’s skin and leaves it there, holding Sherlock, letting Sherlock hold him, the two of them breathing nearly in tandem and letting the pounding of their hearts calm down a bit.

Sherlock squeezes John tight before John pulls away to look up at him. Sherlock’s face is flushed (whether from the kiss or from blushing, John isn’t really able to tell), his lips are parted, and his eyes are soft. He looks down at John lovingly – _lovingly_ – and smiles.

“Well,” he grins.

John shakes his head, laughing. “I didn’t see _you_ doing anything about it, so I figured I should, I suppose.”

“Agreed.” Sherlock lets his fingers run absentmindedly over the fabric of John’s robe. “It seems we’re both to blame for this one.”

Suddenly, John remembers what it was that he muttered into Sherlock’s lips. “I love you,” he says calmly. He plucks a hand off of Sherlock’s neck to sweep it slightly across one those bloody cheekbones, like he’d done the night before. Again, Sherlock leans into the touch.

Sherlock takes a moment to respond. “I know,” he says, and bends down to press a quick kiss to John’s lips. “You made it painfully obvious.”

“Yeah, well, so did you.” John can’t stop smiling. He’s so in love with the feeling of Sherlock’s arms around him, of Sherlock’s thin but warm body pressed into him, the slight tingling ghost of Sherlock’s lips that still lingers on his own, with Sherlock’s face as John absentmindedly runs a hand through his hair – but mostly he’s in love with Sherlock, and he never wants this moment to end.

Unfortunately, it does, as all moments do. Sherlock presses one last kiss to John’s forehead and pulls away, putting his goggles back into place.

“As pleasant as this has all been,” he says, waving a hand in John’s general direction, “this experiment _does_ have a schedule.”

John comes over to stand by him. He puts a hand around Sherlock’s waist, because he can do that now, it’s okay. “Still need my help?”

Sherlock looks at him, raises and eyebrow. “If you don’t mind giving it, yes.” John rarely, if ever, willingly assists with Sherlock’s experiments.

“Right.” John picks up the extra pair of goggles and puts them on. Before Sherlock can say another word, he flicks his wings a bit and flutters up to Sherlock’s height, kissing Sherlock one last time. Their goggles bump and scrape together awkwardly, but after a moment of shuffling and a little awkward chuckling, their lips meet and then it’s perfectly fine, it’s okay, it’s excellent.

“So what do I need to do?” John asks, still hovering by the air by Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock smiles, slowly. John feels that if everyone in the world had a smile like that, there’d be no fighting or poverty or unhappiness on any corner of the globe. It’s a smile that could stop wars.

“Start the Bunsen burner,” Sherlock tells him. “Put it on the highest setting.”

John does as he’s asked.

The experiment proceeds without any huge error or explosions, which John is immensely grateful for. John does what he’s told and Sherlock writes things down, and they don’t kiss any more or hold hands or brush up against each other “on accident” or “trip” and fall into each other’s arms. They just continue on as usual, as if nothing’s changed at all.

Which, upon reflection, it hasn’t. Not really, anyway.

They’ve always been like this.

When Sherlock spills something all over the floor and John considers calling the fire department to come help them clean it up and Mrs. Hudson runs in and there’s quite a bit of shouting and chaos, neither of them think they’ve ever been happier.


	20. Permanent

It’s been exactly two hours, twenty-six minutes, and thirty seven seconds since John kissed Sherlock in the kitchen. John’s been counting.

They haven’t really said anything about it since then. After the hazardous waste team left and Mrs. Hudson went back downstairs to finish baking her muffins, Sherlock had pressed a quick kiss to the top of John’s head on his way to the couch, and that had been it, really. John figures it’s probably time he brought up the subject again.

He decides he’s going to be brave, so he sits down next to Sherlock on the couch. Sherlock turns into him immediately, closing his laptop and sliding it off of him to the side, leaning over and burying his head into John’s chest. John’s taken a bit by surprise.

“Cuddly, are we?” he chuckles, as he places his arm over Sherlock’s shoulder.

“Mmf,” Sherlock mutters, in a noncommittal way, into John’s jumper.

John smiles. He can’t help it, really. There are so many things to be sorted out and established, and so many questions to ask, but he’s just kissed his best friend and it was fantastic and, at least for the moment, he’s positively chuffed.

He sighs and leans back, relaxing into the warmth of Sherlock’s body. “Are we going to talk about it?” he asks.

Sherlock doesn’t even look up at him. “Talk about what?”

“Oh come on, don’t play daft.” John’s running his fingers along the back of Sherlock’s dressing gown – he honestly hadn’t even noticed he was doing it. “You know. Talk about the fact that yesterday we weren’t a couple, and now we are. I think. Anyway, we should probably discuss that.”

“What is there to discuss?” Sherlock mutters. “You came in this morning and kissed me like the dramatic heartthrob you are, and I reciprocated happily. Is there anything else that needs to be talked about?”

“Well… yes, I mean… yes.” John sighs. “It’s more complicated than that, Sherlock.”

“Maybe it’s not. Maybe you’re the one making it complicated.”

“Well… no, I’m not. These things, just… well, they’re–”

“I’ve been in love with you for months,” Sherlock says, and it’s so sudden that John nearly does a double take. “I’ve been waiting endlessly for you to realize it, and to realize that you reciprocated the feelings – which you obviously did. I didn’t want to make the first move because I felt that I’d somehow screw it up, just like I screw up every other interpersonal interaction that I attempt to make. But now you’ve gone and done it, and it worked out perfectly, and so here we are. I don’t really think there’s any more to it than that.”

John stunned for a moment, but then he smiles. Things have never really been done the conventional way where Sherlock is concerned, and he supposes that rule apparently applies to their relationship as well.

John smiles again. He’s been smiling a lot today, far more than usual. “So… are we… boyfriends?” he asks, reaching a hand over to run his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, which is soft and curly and utterly perfect. Sherlock makes a small sound of contentment before answering.

“If you like.” His voice is drawn-out, languid. “Definitely not a term I’d ever imagine I’d be applying to myself.”

“We don’t have to be boyfriends,” John says. He thinks for a moment. “We could figure out some other word to use.”

“Hm, yes,” Sherlock agrees. “I don’t like ‘boyfriends,’ anyway. Far too temporary.”

John looks down in him in surprise. “And… are we… not?”

“Not what?”

“Temporary.”

“Of course not.” Sherlock looks up at him with an eyebrow raised, but softens his expression when he realizes what he’s just said – what he’s assuming. “I mean… I just assumed… I figured that we would be… if you don’t want that, then–”

“I agree,” John says, interrupting him. “I don’t think we’re… temporary. I don’t think _this_ is temporary.”

“Hm. Good.”

“I think we’re going to last a long time.”

“Obviously.”

“I can’t really see myself ever leaving you, you know.”

“Of course not.”

“I think I want to grow old with you.”

Sherlock doesn’t answer. Instead, he sits up and looks John in the eyes. John can’t read his expression, but it’s bare and heartfelt and definitely not an expression he’s seen on Sherlock’s face very often.

John takes a breath. “I know it’s a bit early in all this, maybe,” he says – choosing his words carefully. He’s not really good at this sort of thing, so he’s just going to out and say it. “But I don’t think it matters how long we’ve officially been together. We’ve basically been in a committed relationship for over half a year, and I think that’s long enough to say with absolute certainty that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He lets out the air in his lungs and purses his lips, a bit awkwardly. “So… how about it?”

In response, Sherlock kisses him.

John smiles and puts a firm hand on the nape of Sherlock’s neck, pulling him closer. He breathes in Sherlock’s scent (a mixture of chemicals and fancy hand-soap and freshly-cleaned clothes) and drinks him in.

They carry on for a while. John hasn’t had a proper snog in quite a bit, and it’s about time he did. They’re urgent and a bit needy at first – eager to get the tension of the past year out of the way as soon as possible – but they slow down after a while, because they’ve got all the time in the world.

After a while, Sherlock pulls away; gently, but a bit abruptly. He looks over John’s shoulder. John turns, following his gaze.

Mrs. Hudson is peeking through the doorway, and uncertain expression on her face. She waves awkwardly.

“ _So_ sorry to interrupt,” she says. “But… I’m so sorry, it’s very important. Do you mind if I come in?”

John nods, ignoring the slight blush coming into his cheeks. When Mrs. Hudson gives him a knowing look as she walks past him, he only gets redder.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, clearing his throat. He turns away from Sherlock and towards her, trying to smooth out his clothing without being too obvious.

Mrs. Hudson wrings her hands nervously. “There are reporters downstairs… they keep trying to come in. Do you boys know why they’re here?”

John blinks, and then launches himself off the couch, flapping his wings a bit as he leaps over the coffee table to get to the window, and landing with a thud. When he sees the masses of reporters outside, he turns to Sherlock.

“Check the news,” he says, pointing at Sherlock’s laptop. Sherlock complies without a word.

“Did they say anything to you?” John asks Mrs. Hudson, who’s still wringing her hands. He comes over and puts a hand on her shoulder in attempt to calm her down. “Did you hear anything they were saying?”

“Well…” Mrs. Hudson looks uncertain. “I think they were saying your name, John… although I couldn’t tell.”

“My name?” John mutters. He turns to glance out the window again – now he can hear the faint shouting outside. “My god, they’re loud. How did we not notice them before?”

“Well, dear,” Mrs. Hudson says with a gentle smile. “You _were_ otherwise occupied, weren’t you?”

John turns pink to the ears, and doesn’t answer.

After a beat, Sherlock calls out behind him: “John. Come here. You’ll want to see this.”

John walks back to the couch and sits down by Sherlock’s side, leaning over to see the computer screen. He reads the headline seven times before it registers in his brain.

“‘Flying Man Spotted on the Streets,’” he reads out loud, with a tone of disbelief. “‘Recent Internet rumors concerning the existence of fairies are proven to be true… Countless witnesses yesterday saw a middle-aged man flying the streets of London, a man now identified by witnesses to be the famous blogger Dr. John Watson…’ – _Jesus._ ”

He collapses heavily onto Sherlock, who puts an arm around him and hugs him close. He can hardly think straight, or even breathe properly.

“‘This incredible phenomenon has already started an international uproar,’” Sherlock says, continuing to read the article aloud. “‘People all around the world are being shocked with the realization that fairies now definitely exist… Several other people across the globe have already publicly revealed themselves as fairies in the few hours since the first tweets went viral.’”

“ _Jesus_ ,” John breathes out. His head is spinning. “I’ve started it. God, Sherlock, I’ve started it.”

Sherlock looks up at him from the computer screen. “Started what?”

“The Integration.” John swallows. “It means… when fairies will be fully accepted into human society. I thought it was never going to happen, but now… I’ve bloody started it. I’ve _started_ the Integration.”

“Oh John,” Mrs. Hudson gasps, from where she’s sitting on the edge of her seat.

Sherlock stares at him, silently. “What are you going to do?” he asks after a moment.

John looks back at him, head still spinning. “Er… I’m going to stay in here and hide until they all leave, I suppose.”

“ _John._ ” Sherlock’s looking at him intently, the way he looks at him when he’s about to say something immensely important, so John pays close attention. “John, this could be… this could be the next step.”

“What?”

“Yes, it’s – John, there are over a hundred reporters outside who are desperate to interview you and print your every word.” Sherlock’s getting more and more excited. “You could take this chance, and use it to your advantage. You could tell them the truth about fairies, get it all out in the open, make sure no one has any misconceptions. You could turn them all to your side.”

John’s jaw has fallen open. “Sherlock, you’re asking me to speak on the behalf of _my entire species.”_

“Better you than anyone else.” Sherlock smiles. “You could change everything, right here, right now. This could be the next step into something enormous.”

John can hear the reporters outside. They’re drowned out by the frantic beating of his heart, but he can still tell that they’re out there. He looks at Mrs. Hudson, and then at Sherlock – the two people who love him and care about him the most, the two people who make up his little family – and they’re both staring at him, waiting for him to decide.

John swallows. He’s probably going to regret this.

He’s made his decision.

•••

“How do I look?” John asks.

Sherlock looks him up and down. John can see Sherlock drink in the sight of John’s slit-back coat, as if he can’t get enough of seeing John wear it. He clears his throat.

“Does it matter?” he asks.

John sighs. “Sherlock, I’m most likely going to appear on national television as soon as I open this door. Yes, it matters.”

“Then you look utterly perfect.”

“Right.” John hardly even notices the uncharacteristic compliment, because he’s far too distracted. “You’re coming out with me, right?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.”

“Good?”

“Almost. Hold on a sec.”

John grabs Sherlock by the lapel and kisses him, hard. He flies up a bit so they’re face to face and takes a moment to open their mouths, just a little, just for a second. When he’s done, he rests his forehead on Sherlock’s for a moment, breathing in the familiar, comforting scent, letting the faint buzzing of his own wings lull him into a state of almost-calm.

“Okay. Now I’m ready.” John says, as he lands on the ground and opens the front door.

John’s faced reporters outside the flat before. As he and Sherlock – well, Sherlock, really – have gotten more famous, it’s become an occasional occurrence. However, it’s never been like this. There are more reporters and cameramen and onlookers than John could have believed possible, and every last one of them is screaming at John.

“John! Are you really a fairy, or was it a hoax?”

“Do you have anything to say for your species?”

“Dr. Watson! How does it feel to have the whole world know your secret?”

“What was it that led you to decide to go public?”

“John, how did you fake it?”

“One at a time!” John yells, which has absolutely no effect. He starts waving his hands up and down, trying to signal for everyone to lower the volume. “One at a _bloody_ time!”

It takes a while, but the questions eventually get quieter, and John points at a random reporter with a microphone and camera. “You. What is it?” he asks.

“Dr. Watson, first and foremost, can you confirm the fact that you actually are a fairy?” she asks, holding up the microphone.

The rest of the reporters go dead quiet, ready with their cameras and notepad to record John’s every word.

“Yes, I can,” John says, and the reporters erupt into questions again.

“ _One at a time,_ ” John yells again, and again they quiet down.

“Can you prove it to us?” the reporter asks.

 _I can’t bloody believe I’m doing this_ , John thinks to himself, and sighs. He flicks his wings just enough to get him a few feet off the ground – the reporters go insane. Cameras flash, pencils scribble, people screech.

“Okay, okay, someone else ask a question,” John says, feeling more than a bit lost. He feels Sherlock put a hand on his shoulder, which instantly relaxes him. He points at another reporter. “You. Your turn.”

“John, the entire world is having a hard time with this revelation. Up until yesterday, fairies were a mythological creature – today, they’re a reality, and the whole world is panicking. Do you have anything to say about that?”

John swallows. “I, er. Well. Fairies have been in hiding for a really long time, but we’re definitely real. In fact, some people estimate that roughly a tenth of the world’s population is made up of fairies, but we’ve all been forced to hide, so no one knows about it. Anyone you’ve ever met in your life could be a fairy, and you’d never know. I think it’s about time we all got to stop hiding.”

“Does that mean you’ve been keeping this a secret for your whole life?”

John nods. “Well, yeah, of course. I had to. Only my good friends could ever know, or else… well, or else… you can imagine, I suppose.”

“You were afraid of discrimination?”

“God, far more than discrimination.” John shakes his head. “Up until yesterday, no one in the world even believed that fairies were real – which I happened to change completely on accident. Going out in public without hiding would be like walking a unicorn down the street – I mean, you never bloody know what people would do if that happened. I might have gotten gunned down on the spot, or taken away by the government. People go crazy when they see something they don’t understand.”

“What made you decide to go public?”

John thinks about his words carefully. He’s got another announcement to make as well, so he might as well throw it in casually. “My… partner, Sherlock, managed to convince me,” he says. He supposes “partner” is as good a word as any, and – judging by the light squeeze Sherlock gives his shoulder – said “partner” agrees. “He never wanted me to have to hide, from the moment we met. He always thought it was wrong that I had to bind my wings and hide myself every single day of my life, and I agreed. Yesterday, I finally worked up the courage to stop hiding – although I had no idea it would have such an impact on the world.” He swallows. “I was just trying to be who I was. I had no idea any of… _this_ would happen.”

“Is Sherlock a fairy, too?”

“No, he’s not.”

There’s a murmuring in the crowd.

“Dr. Watson, do you have anything to say on the behalf of your species?”

 _This is it, I suppose,_ John thinks. He leans into Sherlock for support as he takes a breath. “I can’t really speak on the behalf of my whole race. That would be… just utterly impossible. But I guess I can try.” He swallows down his fear and forges ahead. “I’m sure that humans everywhere are pretty terrified right now. And, I mean, I suppose they have a reason to be – fairies have been in hiding for centuries.

“But there are some things that need to be understood, by everyone, everywhere: we may not be human, but we _are_ people. And I don’t mean ‘we act just like people,’ I mean we _are_ people. Despite the most obvious of biological differences – you know, wings – fairies and humans are exactly the same. We came from the same ancestral roots. We evolved along side you. Every single person here has probably been friends with a fairy once, and they didn’t even know it.

“I know this is scary, and very unexpected. I know I’ve probably just singlehandedly turned a lot of people’s beliefs about the world on their heads. But really… none of you have anything to worry about. We are _not dangerous_. I don’t know how much I can stress this. We are all very normal people, just like all of you, and we just want to live our lives without having to hide all the time. We’ve been living alongside humans peacefully for centuries, and we’ll continue to do so. Please, just treat us like people.” John reaches his hand up to touch Sherlock’s on his shoulder, giving Sherlock’s long fingers a squeeze. “It’s all very simple. And that’s all I have to say.”

The reporters erupt again as John let’s himself be steered back inside by Sherlock, still in a complete daze. Once they’re inside and the door is shut, John collapses into Sherlock’s arms.

“Did that really happen?” he asks. “Did I really just do that?”

“Mm, you did.” Sherlock strokes his hair and holds him to his chest.

“Did I do all right?”

“Yes. You did fantastically.”

“Is there going to be an international uproar?”

“Without a doubt.”

“And… I’ve basically just turned the entire world upside down?”

“Basically.”

“And the whole world knows I’m a fairy now.”

“The whole world, yes.”

John looks up at his partner. “So I’m done hiding? Forever?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

John smiles, and then he laughs. “Oh my god. Oh my god, it feels amazing. I feel _fantastic,_ I feel so bloody good, Sherlock.”

He can feel Sherlock smiling into his hair as he pulls John closer to him, closing his arms tighter around his waist. “I always wanted this for you.”

“Yes, I know you did.”

“You were adamant about hiding, but I knew you’d come ‘round eventually.”

“Mmhm, because you’re a stubborn twat and I love you.”

Sherlock kisses the top of his head. “I knew you’d wear the coat someday.”

“Yeah, well. I did promise, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.”

“I did.”

“Mm.”

“Exactly.”

“Boys!” Mrs. Hudson calls, quite suddenly from her kitchen. “Your phone’s been ringing! Oh, and the muffins are done, you’d better come and have one while they’re warm.”

John looks up at Sherlock. “Should we answer the phone?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Mm. No, I don’t think so.” John takes hold of Sherlock’s hand and starts walking to Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen with him. “I think we’ve had enough of this nonsense for today. They’ll take what I’ve already said and they can make of it what they will. I don’t feel like getting involved anymore until things have calmed down.”

“I don’t think they’ll be calming down any time soon, John. I have a feeling this is only going to get more absurd in the days to come.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” John threads his fingers through Sherlock’s as they walk. “Harry’s going to throw a fit.”

“Probably.” Sherlock said, and then, almost as an afterthought – “Have I told you yet that I love you?”

John stops in his tracks, raising an eyebrow. “No, you… well, not explicitly.”

“All right, then. I love you.” Sherlock nods to himself, as if checking something off a mental list, and keeps walking down the hallway. John grabs him by his shoulder and spins him around.

“That’s… that’s all?” he asks.

“Is there more I should have said?”

“Well… no, not really, I suppose.”

“John, I’m…” Sherlock bits his lip. To John’s surprise, he actually seems a bit shy. “I’m sorry I can’t say it in some… more poetic way. I could try, I suppose, but you understand that I’ve never done anything remotely like this before, and–”

“No, it was… you said it perfectly,” John says, and he smiles.

Sherlock smiles back. “I’ve never felt the need or desire to love anyone, but I’m starting to understand its advantages.”

“Me too,” John says, grinning and possibly more in love than he’s ever been before, and they both go in to have warm muffins, and ignore the phone upstairs – it doesn’t stop ringing for a minute.


	21. The Rest

_Five Years Later_

“Tea?”

Mycroft smiles, equal parts warm and sarcastic. “How kind of you, Sherlock. I can’t recall you ever offering me tea before.”

Sherlock sits down opposite him, in his usual armchair. “I’ve grown up, brother dear.” He takes a sip from his own mug – decent, but never quite as comforting as when John makes it for him. “I’m not the sociopath I once was.”

“Mm. John’s having an excellent influence on you.” Mycroft smiles to himself as he twirls his umbrella. “And domestic bliss must suit you, Sherlock. You’ve put on two pounds since I saw you last.”

“Three,” Sherlock corrects him. “I’ve almost beat you at your own game. How many have you gained since we last met? Four?”

“None of your business, brother,” Mycroft sighs, rolling his eyes.

“Hm. I’d lay off the cake if I were you.” Sherlock reclines further back in his chair. “Anyway, my steady weight gain is John’s doing, of course. I most likely would have starved to death years ago if he hadn’t insisted on… oh, what’s the term? ‘Feeding me up,’ I believe.”

“And that’s all you keep him around for, I’m sure? Feeding you up?”

“Of course not. He also does the shopping.”

“Charming.” Mycroft leans back in John’s chair, a bit smug. “You’ve become quite the romantic, Sherlock. I never imagined you’d have it in you.”

“Neither did I, to be quite honest. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few years, however, it’s that John Watson is the exception to everything.”

“That would indeed appear to be the case,” Mycroft sighs, sipping his tea. “Now, brother mine, what was it exactly you wanted to talk to me about?”

Sherlock sighs. “The ban on interspecies marriage.”

“Ah, yes.” Mycroft shakes his head. “Troublesome, isn’t it?”

“Horribly. John and I have been spending a lot of time with those fairy rights activists – you know, the group Lestrade started? The Equal Personhood Movement, he calls it – creating ad campaigns, heading the picket lines, etc… but it isn’t doing as much good as we’d like. I need the process sped up a bit.”

“I see,” Mycroft says thoughtfully. A thought occurs to him, and he smirks. “When are you planning to propose?”

“As soon as possible,” Sherlock answers, tapping his fingers on the chair’s arm. “I’ve already bought a ring. I can only hope he’ll say yes and all this trouble won’t be for nothing.”

“He will,” Mycroft says with a grin. He sighs and leans back in his chair. “Yes, I can have the law revoked eventually. It will take some doing, but I’ll make it a priority – for you, dear brother.”

Sherlock nods, more pleased than he’s willing to show. “Mycroft, I’m offended. Aren’t I already a priority? Or are you too occupied with the Korean elections to tend to the whims of your little brother?”

Mycroft picks up his umbrella and pretends to inspect it, as he often tends to do, and ignores Sherlock’s sarcasm. “I can’t say as much for some of the other segregation laws, however. The ban on fairies voting and running for office, for example. Revoking an unconstitutional obstruction on marriage is one thing – and nothing I haven’t done before, mind you. Revoking the second class citizenship of fairies entirely is quite another.”

“Ugh,” Sherlock groans, bitterly. “How long is all of this going to take?”

“It’s a worldwide civil rights movement, Sherlock. These things take time.”

“Well, they shouldn’t. It’s so _painfully_ simple to comprehend. I don’t understand why people remain so adamantly ignorant.”

“We’re already making progress, Sherlock,” Mycroft reminds him, with a patient smile. “The ban on fairies attending the same schools as humans didn’t even last a year before it was overturned by the masses. For a civil rights movement, things are moving relatively quickly.”

Sherlock stares into space for a while. He picks up his violin bow from the table and starts fiddling with it as he thinks. “Do you suppose… when John and I are older, retired…” He flips the bow in his hands, over and over. “Do you imagine things might be settled by then? That John might be… that he might be free? Accepted?”

Mycroft takes a moment before answering. “I’m afraid I can’t say, Sherlock. Perhaps – perhaps not. Only time will tell.” He takes another moment, and then adds, smiling – “Although, if I were to give an honest prediction as of right now, I’d say… _most definitely_.”

Sherlock smiles with him. He can’t help himself.

“Well, brother mine, I really must be going,” Mycroft says, as he stands and brushes off his jacket. “And I don’t recall congratulating you yet.”

“On what?”

“The engagement, of course.”

“That’s quite a premature congratulation, don’t you think?”

“You’ve been practically engaged for the past five years, brother.” Mycroft starts making his lazy way to the door. “I look forward to the wedding. For now, however, I’ve got a rather enormous mess to clean up. James Moriarty certainly did leave a troublesome web behind for me to deal with.”

Sherlock’s head perks up. “Moriarty? What about him?”

“Hm, Sherlock, I’m surprised you haven’t heard.” Mycroft sighs. “He had some greater scheme in mind, starting back when he was getting involved with you… he had formed an alliance with those vile creatures, the Vide. You encountered one of them, I believe?”

Sherlock fidgets a bit at the thought of the sixteen-eyed monster. “Hm. Yes.”

“Well, as it turns out, the Vide aren’t really that sympathetic towards world-dominating psychopaths. They actually prefer to be left alone, for the most part. Devouring lith energy in peace. Moriarty got in a bit over his head, I’m afraid.”

“So? What did the Vide do to him?”

“Exactly what you’d expect a group of soul-eating monsters to do,” Mycroft answers matter-of-factly. “They ate his soul.”

Sherlock lets his breath out slowly. “Frankly, I can’t imagine it was much of a meal.”

“No, I can’t imagine it was. Funnily enough, dear brother, I’m now officially running late. Ta, Sherlock.” Mycroft turns to leave.

“Do be careful to avoid Mrs. Hudson on your way out,” Sherlock calls after him. “I think she’s just whipped up a batch of cookies – wouldn’t want your diet to go to waste.”

Mycroft gives him one last withering glare before he saunters out the door.

Sherlock sits in his chair in the quiet flat, filling up the silent room with mindless violin music, and waits for John to come home.

•••

John feels like he’s floating, which is a feeling he knows very well – from personal experience. Today, however, he’s not even lifting a wing, and every moment still feels like walking on air.

Sherlock’s off talking to someone. John’s mulling around a bit, saying hello to guests he hasn’t seen in far too long, catching up on how’ve-you-been’s and how’s-the-wife’s and so on and so forth. John doesn’t normally go for such meaningless chitchat, but today is a very special day.

After a while, Sherlock finally comes back over and finds him, greeting him with a familiar smirk. “How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Same as you, I’d imagine.”

“Then you’d imagine correctly.”

John beams at him.

Lestrade waves to them across the room and walks over, grinning madly, and claps John on the back. “You two look ridiculously chuffed,” he tells them. “If you get any more bloody cheerful, I think everyone in this room’s going to be sick.”

“Sod off, it’s my wedding day,” John jabs, grinning from ear to ear.

“Fucking hell it is, and about bloody time.” Lestrade laughs. “Five years of watching you two moon at each other and it’s only now you finally get some rings on your fingers. I can’t tell you how glad I am Mycroft finally got that law revoked.”

“Neither can we,” Sherlock says. “I made sure to thank him.” John stares up at him, eyebrow quirked – it’s not a very common occurrence that Sherlock displays a grateful attitude towards his brother. John supposes that this is a very special occasion.

“I thanked him as well,” Lestrade says, nodding his head. “You know, he’s been working with me on some stuff for the EPM. He’s pretty efficient, your brother.” Lestrade looks over both of their heads, staring into the distance, a bit swallowed in thought. When he looks back, he gives them a slight wink. “In more ways that one.”

He gives them a wave and wanders off. Sherlock and John look at each other, wearing matching expressions of puzzlement.

“Did he just insinuate what I thought he just insinuated?” John asks.

“I’m a bit hesitant to find out,” Sherlock answers.

“But… no, he can’t mean… I mean, _really_ …”

“I suppose you never know with Mycroft,” Sherlock mumbles, still a bit shaken. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Anyway, Lestrade would seem to be his type.”

“Mycroft has a _type_?”

“You’d be surprised.”

John stares blankly at the floor, not entirely sure what to think, until Harry comes over and gives him a tackling hug. He laughs, breaking out of his shocked daze and patting her on the back.

“My kid brother’s grown up,” she says, mock-crying. He laughs again. “So, Johnny, how’s married life treating you?”

“I’ve only been married twenty minutes, Harry. Ask me again in five years.”

“I’m sure your answer will be the same,” Sherlock comments.

John turns to look at him, smiling warmly. “You seem awfully sure of yourself.”

“I am. Aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.” John gives him a little grin and turns back to Harry. He notices Molly waiting next to her, a bit awkwardly. He’s about to ask if Harry’s been introduced to her yet, but Harry beats him to it.

“So John, you know Molly?” she asks. Molly shifts her feet and bites her lip.

John raises an eyebrow. “Er… yeah, of course I know Molly. She’s one of my best friends – I invited her here. _You_ know Molly?”

“Yeah, of course I do.” Harry shrugs her shoulders. “I had no idea you knew her, though, until she told me she was coming to your wedding.”

“I… okay, then.” John raises an eyebrow. “So. Where do you know her from?”

Molly coughs.

“Well…” Harry quirks her lip up a bit. “We’ve been going out for a couple months.”

John stares at her.

“You… you can’t… hold on, _really?_ ” His draw falls open. “You? Molly? I mean… _really_?”

Molly shrugs. “I dunno, John, it just sort of… happened? I suppose?”

Harry puts an arm around her. Molly doesn’t protest – in fact, she leans into it and smiles awkwardly. “We met through our mutual friend, Mike Stamford. He said something about having a knack at playing matchmaker later on – no idea what that’s supposed to mean.”

“I didn’t even know she was your sister until a week ago,” Molly tells John. “I would have told you, but I figured that Harriet already had. Apparently she didn’t.”

John finally recovers from his shock. “Wow, I mean… wow. I’m just a bit surprised, to be honest, but I’m happy you two are happy.”

“Yeah, we are,” Harry says, giving Molly a warm look – Molly smiles. Harry turns back to John, with mounting excitement. “Did you know, she can see liths?”

“That’s quite old news, do keep up,” Sherlock says.

“Harriet’s been researching,” Molly tells them. “She’s a really fantastic witch. You should see her transfiguration spells, they’re amazing.”

“Oh, I’m just your average magically-gifted half-fairy,” Harry says, but not without a bit of a blush. “Anyway, I haven’t quite figured out where her powers come from. I think it has something to do with a magical defect in her birth… a sort of cross-over between a human birth and a fairy birth, where somehow the excess lith energy that would normally result in a fairy baby got tangled up with her during pregnancy. It’s just a theory, though, I could be totally wrong.”

“That would be a first,” John says, sarcastically but not without a bit of fraternal warmth. Harry sticks her tongue out at him, and the two walk back out onto the dance floor, leaving Sherlock and John to stand by themselves.

John lets out a long breath. “God, it’s just a night for shocking revelations, isn’t it?”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“I think I’m still in a daze. I need more wine.”

“Help yourself. Get me a glass too, will you? I rather like it.”

“Will do,” John says. He turns around and comes face to face with Matilda Watson.

There’s a beat, frozen in the air with the thickness of fog. “Mum,” he grins, finally, and hugs her tight. She squeezes him hard before releasing him, holding him by the shoulders and looking him up and down, beaming in the most maternal way possible.

“You look so handsome,” she tells him. Her voice is bright and soft, as though you can hear her smile channeled through her lips into her words. “I expect nothing less from my young man, of course.”

He feels something tugging at his throat as he keeps smiling. “I’m not such a young man anymore, mum.”

“You are to me.” She hugs him again. John puts his hands, almost protectively, over his mother’s wings. They’re a bit old, and starting to pucker with age, but still just as strong as they ever were.

When she pulls back, there are tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here earlier. I was so frightened I would miss the whole thing.”

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re here now.”

She nods over at Sherlock, who’s talking to an elderly couple. “Are those your husband’s parents?” she asks.

John practically beams at her. _My husband._ “Yes, those are the Holmeses.”

“Good, I’d like to meet them. And I’d like a word with your man.” She walks over to Sherlock, her head held high and her back straight – just the way she’s always walked.

John taps his husband on the shoulder. “Sherlock, sorry to interrupt, but my mum would like to speak with you.”

Sherlock turns to look at him, and nods. “Excellent, because my parents would like to meet her.” He gestures at the elderly couple. “Matilda, this is my mother and father. Mum, dad – this is Matilda Watson, John’s mother.”

Matilda’s eyes go a bit wide. “Really?”

“Why the look of surprise, mum?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing, you two just seem a bit… well, a bit ordinary, I suppose.”

To John’s relief, Sherlock’s parents laugh. “You wouldn’t be the first to say that,” they told her. Sherlock’s mum looks over at John’s. “Your son is quite the looker, Matilda. I must say Sherlock did well for himself.”

Matilda laughs. “I could say the same about your dashing young lad here. I wouldn’t mind having a man like him myself.”

“ _Mum_!”

“Oh, what are you boys doing, still talking to us?” Ms. Holmes gestures pointedly towards the dance floor in the middle of the reception. “I could be wrong, but a certain son of mine has always had a love for dancing, and I think it may be his husband’s duty to take care of that.”

All three parents smile as John tugs Sherlock out onto the dance floor. “Come on, you big git, it’s my wedding,” John says, and Sherlock laughs as John holds him in the wrong position and steps on his feet and ends up being a bloody terrible dancer, and neither of them mind in the slightest.

•••

“Sherlock, will you come outside with me for a bit?”

Sherlock groans.

John sighs and starts pulling him up out of his chair. “Come on, husband. I’ve got something to show you.”

“Is it a murder?” Sherlock asks, rolling his eyes.

“No, it’s better than a murder.”

“Incorrect. Nothing’s better than a murder. Let me wallow in my lethargy in peace. Husband.”

“No, you’re getting up and coming with me.” John finally tugs him into a standing position. “It’s a wedding gift, by the way.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

“Oh come off it, no it’s not. We’re on our honeymoon.”

“Mm,” Sherlock agrees. He reluctantly pulls on his coat and scarf. “Yes, and it’s terribly boring.”

“It’s just for a week. And it’s supposed to be relaxing. You’re just being contrary.”

“Perhaps.” Sherlock follows him out the door of their little house. “Or maybe you’re just dull.”

“I hope not, because now you’re stuck with me.”

“Fine. Where is it that we’re going?”

John grins up at him. “Somewhere with a lot of sky.”

They walk for ten minutes or so before John stops in the middle of a large meadow. It’s absolutely gorgeous: rolling hills of wildflowers and mountains in the distance and a robin’s egg blue sky overhead, with wispy white clouds. John stops, nodding to himself, and then retrieves a small vial from his pocket.

He hands it to Sherlock. “Take a swig of this. Just one gulp, mind you.”

Sherlock eyes it hesitantly. “What is it?”

“You’ll find out when you drink it. Now drink.”

Sherlock gives him a look, and uncorks the bottle, giving it a small swig. He hands it back to John.

“Disgusting,” he says, and then waits. Nothing happens.

Half a minute passes before he sighs and looks at John. “What’s going on? Is something supposed to be happening?”

To his surprise, John grins from ear to ear. “Look down,” he says.

Sherlock looks down. His feet are no longer on to the ground.

“John…” he cries out, reaching out a hand in surprise. John takes him and steadies him, still grinning. Sherlock’s feet begin floating up, along with the rest of him. He looks at John with wide eyes.

“Anti-gravity potion,” John explains. “I had Harry whip up a batch before the wedding. It should wear off in about four hours.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow, still holding onto John’s arm for dear life. His feet have floated up to the sky – he’s nearly horizontal. “John? What’s this for?”

John reaches a hand out and tugs Sherlock’s feet back down. When he’s somewhere close to vertical, he takes both of his husband’s hands in his.

“Sherlock, the sky… the sky is like this whole other incredible world, that’s right above our heads. And me… I get to live in it, every day.” John smiles. “And I want to share that with you.”

Sherlock stays frozen for a moment, and then nods. John grips his hands tighter and spreads his wings.

“Are you ready?” he asks him.

“I suppose,” Sherlock answers.

John takes off. He pulls Sherlock upwards, towards the massive expanse of cerulean, where the deep color melts into white feathers and then back again into blue. Sherlock, completely weightless, grips John’s hands as if his life depended on it, and stares into John’s face – refusing to look down.

John brings them up, and up, and up. When the air is whipping cold and he’s starting to get a bit light headed from oxygen shortage – his absolute favorite height to be – he smiles at his husband. “Look down,” he says. “It’s okay. Just do it.”

Sherlock looks down.

He stays quiet for a while. When he looks back at John, his eyes seem red – a bit watery. “Thank you, John,” he says. He says it quietly. “I… thank you.”

John kisses him. He lets go of Sherlock’s hands to cradle the sides of Sherlock’s head and run his fingers through his curls as he tries to say everything he’s ever needed to say without words. Sherlock pulls away after too short a time, gasping for air in the oxygen-deprived atmosphere.

“Bit hard to breathe up here,” John mentions. “You get used to it after a while.”

“Perhaps,” Sherlock says. He looks down around them again, at the world, the Earth, so small and so enormous beneath them. “Although… this is something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to.”

John looks down with him. “There’s no better place to put things in perspective than up here,” he says.

“Mm,” Sherlock agrees. “The world’s changed so drastically since we met.”

“It’s going to continue to change.”

“And what about us?” Sherlock looks at John, biting his lip. “Will we always be… this? Whatever it is we are?”

John doesn’t answer. He just smiles, which is all the answer Sherlock needed, to be honest.

They don’t come down for a long time. John brings them around the tips of mountains and down into the dips of valleys and back up into the infinite expanse of cold sky. About a half an hour after John brings them back to Earth, the anti-gravity draft wears off, but Sherlock doesn’t notice when it does. Even with his feet solidly on the ground, he still feels lighter than air.

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for taking this writerly journey with me. Thanks to everyone who contributed feedback, or even just read this silly story I wrote. It's been so much fun.


End file.
